Andrew, your Orwell quotation reminds me of one from C. S. Lewis. Lewis could hardly have been more different from Orwell, of course, but he had as sharp an eye for cant, hypocrisy—and evil:

“I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of “Admin.” The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid “dens of crime” that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice.”