Ambiguity is often the weapon of choice for totalitarian actors, whether it is Deputy Director Withers or the haughty elitists within the European Union. They feign the benefits of a pluralistic society, and seem to appreciate viewpoint diversity at the surface-level — but surface-level it remains. Do not dare dip your feet in either — your curiosity may lead you to hit a rock-hard bottom. As Ryszard Legutko pinpoints, modern Liberal-Democracies tout “the rhetoric of multiculturalism” while also “[entering] a stage of rigid dogmatization” (Legutko 173). This faux appreciation, when tested or put under basic scrutiny, is nothing but an appeasement guise.
Deputy Director Withers relies on similarly deceptive tactics, instead using Orwellian double-speak and confounding jargon, even among his peers at N.I.C.E. He constantly emphasizes how “on methodological grounds — it is so important to make everything clear” (Lewis 234). However, if you’ve read a passage of Withers-laced dialogue, it becomes abundantly clear that his proclaimed intentions contradict his ulterior motives. He is a man who loves to keep people on their toes, hence his purgatorial treatment of Mark. Withers even addresses/responds to Fairy Hardcastle with the same lack of clarity, proving that almost nobody is immune from his misleading, conniving ways.
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