Karma, as Buddhists and scholars have pointed out, is both individual and collective.

Just another harmless sequel. Nothing to see in the media-ecosystem. Power curates culture. So what. Actually - At this rate, we might as well expect updated Riefenstahl-style ‘classics’ dropping on Amazon. Maybe… “The People’s Will (As Approved by the Producer’s Friends)”

Authoritarians favor image-ready figures because images bypass judgment. Arendt might say, weak media literacy lets spectacle replace truth, enabling power to rule through appearances instead of thought. Perhaps though in some cases it just not enough. Visual Media Literacy _is_ civic self-defense.

And a file labeled ‘Totally Not Surveillance—Do Not Open’ is precisely the kind of euphemism that thrives where thoughtlessness has become a public virtue.

The danger is never merely that the data exists. It is that citizens stop asking who collects it, why, and in whose name. Authoritarianism rarely arrives solely with a boot; it often arrives with a forced laugh track.

Arendt would say the real danger isn’t the images but our failure to judge them. When visual grammar—strength, purity, unity—returns in populist spectacle, it works because thoughtlessness opens the door. The crisis isn’t imagery—it’s losing the capacity to think about what we see.

www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...

Ever found yourself religiously following the lives of people you've never met on social media?

An Arendtian reading: when leaders govern by conspiratorial fantasy rather than shared reality, they abandon judgment, dissolve the public world, and create the conditions in which thoughtlessness becomes a political principle.

The Animal Farm context: In Orwell’s allegory, the pigs distort language to maintain control (“some animals are more equal than others”). Arendt would say the slur is not incidental—it reinforces the hierarchy by normalizing humiliation, ridicule, and the delegitimization of independent judgment.

Her conclusion: the insult is political, not personal. It reflects a regime that treats truth as an inconvenience, the press as a threat, and language as a tool for power rather than understanding.

Animal Farm context
In Orwell’s allegory, the pigs distort language to maintain control (“some animals are more equal than others”). Arendt would say the slur is not incidental—it reinforces the hierarchy by normalizing humiliation, ridicule, and the delegitimization of independent judgment.

“Do not mention other peoples weaknesses and your own strengths. Reviling others and praising yourself is an exceedingly Vulgar thing.” -- Confucian sobriety & moral reserve.