Festival And Education

The ancient folk faith is an important part of festival culture and a component of ancient Chinese culture. Folk faith ideologically guided ancient people's productions and lives. Folk faith can not be equated with superstition . The popular belief, as a spiritual culture, served as the ideological guide of festival lives in the ancient agricultural society. Besides, it was the moral support for the ancient festival culture to pass down from generation to generation and develop. Folk faith can not be equated with superstition ,The unbiased understanding of the folk faith can only be obtained when we stick to the principle of dialectical materialism and historical materialism. The popular faith, by helping people establish the basic value judgments, standardizing people's social conducts and regulating the rhythm of social productions and lives, spiritually oriented the social productions and lives.The ancient popular faith played an important role in the socialization education of the ancient agricultural society. The ancient society, like the modern society, also had to deal with the people's socialization. But, compared with the socialization in the modern society which is characterized by industrialization and information explosion, the socialization in the ancient agricultural society, differed in contents, forms and methods, owning to the different modes of production and levels of literacy at that time. With the passage of time, the degree and intensity of socialization have changed. In the ancient times, the spread of folk faith meanwhile means that of precious experience, knowledge and skills among the people. It, in a subtle way, cultivated people's moral principles. What is more, the folk faith, by affecting the labor divisions among family members, influenced people's recognitions, orientations and adjustments of their social roles. In this way, it helped socialize the ancient people. That is why we say the ancient folk faith played a part in effecting the socialization of people's surviving and living skills, moral concepts, and social conducts and roles. The research on the psychological mechanism connected with the social education of ancient folk faith shows that the ancient folk faith was mainly seen to be actively influential on people when they strongly pursued fortunes and avoided disadvantages at a certain time of the year. Instead of resorting to compulsory rules, it emphatically warned people against the grave consequences of transgressions against certain festival regulations. The common psychology of"would rather believe something to be true than not"prompted people to willingly behave under the guidance of the folk faith. Therefore, the folk faith, in disseminating the culture, made great contribution to the socialization in the ancient times.The ancient folk faith proved to be crucial for the inheritance and development of traditional Chinese culture. Since the socialization of people is an important channel through which the traditional culture passed down from generation to generation and made progress, the folk faith exerted a remarkable influence not only on the ancient socialization but also on the inheritance and spread of traditional culture and national spirit. From the perspective of cultural anthropology, the process of getting to know the folk faith and accepting it is meanwhile the process of absorbing the national traditional culture, and vice versa. So the socialization of people is a significant way in which the traditional culture is passed down and developed. It goes without saying that we should get a clear understanding of various folk beliefs before we absorb, inherit their essences and improve them for today's use. Theoretically and practically, we can neither exaggerate nor neglect its educational functions and influences in the history.