State And Society As Seen In Folk Beliefs

Although Folk Beliefs in Suzhou District was always prosperous, it became much more thriving in Ming and Qing Dynasties, which was first an inevitable result of its development. But it was also related to the development of commodity economy and government's support of selected cults. As a part of folk society, the existence of Folk Beliefs was consistent with the benefits of government in some respects, but there were also much more conflicts between them. On the one hand, it caused prosperity of Vinci, the local cults that conflicted with official cults and patriarch system; On the other hand, it led to the confusion of social order and the deep impact on orthodox ideologies. So the government was to try his best to get control over it, and two ways had been implemented, one was to destroy Yinci, the other was to recognize some other local cults besides Yinci and made use of them. But after studying the case of Yang Zi-qi and Tang Bin's destroying Yinci, and the development of the cult of Zhou Xiao-zi since Ming and Qing Dynasties, we find that these two ways were both not effective means to control Folk Beliefs. In a word, the development of Folk Beliefs can't be easily changed, except by the common people, who have close relationship with it.In this case, we acknowledged that even in pre-modern China, the government couldn't control the folk society as it pleased, either. It were interests that led to the existence of gentle interaction and violence or non-violence conflictsbetween them, the fact was that traditional China did march forward in this contradictory course.