ABSTRACT
We are living in a time marked by exponential expansions of autocratic power and its devastations and destructions across the globe, in its many guises hell-bent (a phrase apt in more ways than one) on derailing, dismantling, and erasing democratic civic institutions, professions, customs, and aspirations, more often than not masquerading and marketed as advances or improvements in spiritual and religious value and enhancements of economic worth and individual “freedom.” The recuperation and rejuvenation of democracy, critique, and consensual politics has never been more urgent. The Empire has indeed (already) struck back, with penetrative powers undreamed of in the past.
