History

I've decided that due to the nature of the Analects of Confucius (which I am writing my paper on) I needed a stronger historical understanding of the context that informed what Confucius' teachings. Most interestingly, I've found that the context that many ancient religious movements started in was because of the increased efficiency of production when civilizations moved into what's called the iron age. The increased abundance allowed huge parts of the populace to specialize their labor in ways that where not possible before. This produced huge problems as societies tried to restructure their social systems in order to accommodate the new economic reality and new social classes. During this transition period many still influential religions and systems of thought arose, such as Buddhism, classical Greek thought, the first Abrahamic prophets, as well as the great Chinese thinkers appearing during this transition.

It makes me wonder if we are going through a similar transition now. We have very recently, in historical terms, undergone a revolution in abundance. Humans, in some places, have far more than just their needs taken met by the modern economy. Do we have a modern spiritual crisis that is analogous to this ancient one?