According to Eric Voegelin (in Order and History Vol. 4: The Ecumenic Age) during the epoch spanning the rise of Persian empire and the fall of the Roman Empire the nature of religion changed radically. Faced with the scale and sheer power of great expanding empires, no individual had sufficient power to change the course of political life in his community to any significant degree. As political activity became synonymous with unfreedom, new religions arose which offered private freedom for individuals and small communities who withdrew from public life and lived subculturally. Prior to this religion and politics were inseparable, but afterwards, religion and politics were separate on principle.

Like it or not, this was the origin of Christianity and it is deeply at odds with what happened to Christianity when it became the official religion of Rome, the most powerful and public-minded empire that ever existed. The outright contradictions introduced in this development still dominate our culture. This is why Christian nationalists require armies of theologicians to help them comb out the abundant knots and tangles from the simple words of their founder, whose meaning is clear if one is prepared to accept their consequences. But lawyers are all about avoidance of consequences, not by avoidance of legal knowledge, but through such great mastery of legal knowledge that they can be unwoven and rewoven to suit the desires of the client.

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The most powerful and rapidly expanding empire in the world today is western corporate capitalism. The power of this new world order dwarfs that of Rome. This new empire’s rule is so universal — so widespread and so deep — that there is no room even in the privacy of one’s mind to evade it. It imposes its strict though often unwritten laws on all human activity, not only on how one behaves, but even on the types of ideas a person can think and how those ideas are thought. This tyranny is enforced in the name of sound method.

So now, even the unprecedented narrowing of the sphere of personal autonomy introduced by the Ecumenic Age religions are breached. Further, the ways of life permitted for modern ascetics — academia and boheminism (and even of entrepreneurship) — are also constricting or evaporating. They’re allying themselves with the empire, “getting cut”, or drying up, as fewer and fewer desire anything outside of the empire. There are fewer places to hide. The remaining few ascetics live in their ghettos reassuring one another that things have gotten as bad as they possibly can.

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Alienation, like parenting, has become an extravagant luxury afforded to fewer and fewer people. Despite the abundance of material goods, contemporary life demands constant feeding of every man and woman and child’s total store of time and energy. Corporate capitalism is a jealous master who requires shows of contempt for all rival powers — and that contempt manifests as a denial of conflict between the conflicting powers. In an argument, what could be more contemptuous to deny the fact that the other’s point conflicts at all with one’s superior point?

To live one must participate in trade, and to participate in trade requires direct or indirect participation in corporate life, and that demands the entirety of one’s mind, one’s body, and one’s heart.