Ashok Panikkar has worked at the intersections of culture, diversity, conflict, and democracy for more than three decades. He shut down MetaCulture after 18 years to start the Village Idiot Studio through which he is engaged in a quixotic effort to get people to stop destroying the greatest civilization in human history—our own. He teaches course, does research, and writes, all in an effort to help intelligent and conscientious citizens to look beyond commonplace understanding of democracy, human rights, diversity, and party politics and to stop taking vital institutions, the larger society, and democracy for granted.