The connotation of idolatry
In ancient Chinese classics, "chong" and "worship" are usually interpreted separately, and the original meaning of "chong" is mountain high, which is extended to be tall, and by extension, respect and attention. "Worship", in ancient times it meant respect, that is, to raise one's hands and bow.
Ancient worship was often associated with religious phenomena and manifested itself in ignorance or fear of nature, implying the use of worship to achieve peace or solve difficulties. Historically, idolatry began with human respect for nature and the worship of specific images or objects, which manifested totem worship.
However, with the increase of human self-awareness, the worship of totems gradually evolved into the worship of gods, that is, the worship of religious humanoid images. Whether it is totem worship or the worship of religious humanoid images, it is actually people's psychological suggestion to pray for the safety and success of themselves or their families.
Thus, idolatry is a product of human consciousness and continues to evolve with the awakening of human consciousness. Over time, people gradually secularized the gods they worshipped, gradually worshipped saints and heroes, shifted the objects of worship to real people, and gradually expanded the scope of idolatry.
The values and social mentality of the object of worship affect the life content and behavior of the worshipper, and idolatry is also closely related to ideology, politics, values and ethics, and personal morality.
Role model idolatry vs. entertainment idolatry
Role model idolatry refers to the demonstration, guidance and inspiration of people's thoughts, politics, morals, behaviors and values produced by individuals or groups who embody the mainstream ideology of society in a specific historical period, so as to arouse people's recognition and worship.
Role model idols usually embody spiritual, more rational, and absolutely correct things, and the positive energy they represent positively influence people of different times and backgrounds, encouraging them to keep moving forward and will not be eliminated due to the changes of the times.
Role models show more positive content and have a deeper impact on worshippers, role models focus on exemplary role, use their excellent inner guidance to people for good, embody the core values of society, and have stronger vitality.
The idolatry of college students involved in this study refers to entertainment idolatry. Entertainment idolatry is the love, recognition and worship of entertainment stars in the context of the prosperity of the entertainment industry at a certain stage of human development.
Entertainment idol worship is a psychological phenomenon, but also a special behavior in the process of human physical and mental growth and development, people project their own ideals, beliefs and values directly onto idols, which to a certain extent reflects a conflict, as well as the contradiction of unbalanced personal and social development.
In the process of creating entertainment icons, their packaging and presentation inevitably exaggerate the content of the interaction, and even mislead people to some extent. In order to maintain the popularity and long-term development of entertainment idols, worshippers often show various forms of fanaticism in their behavior towards idols, so the phenomenon of blindly pursuing entertainment idols is very common.
Role model idolatry has both similarities and differences with entertainment idolatry. The similarities are: First, there is an overlap between the idolatry of role models and the behavior of entertainment idolatry, which is mainly reflected in spiritual traits such as dedication and good moral character.
Due to the good development of the construction of socialist spiritual civilization, college students will also consider whether they have the characteristics of role models, whether they have spiritual qualities worthy of learning from the public, and whether they contribute to the interests of the country and the people when choosing idols.
Second, both role model idolatry and entertainment idolatry take psychological identity as the starting point, emotional attachment as the connection point, and learning or imitation as the foothold.
Finally, role model idolatry and entertainment idolatry both originate from mass communication, through which role model education or guidance for college students' idolatry behavior. The difference between role model idolatry and entertainment idolatry is: the fundamental difference between entertainment idolatry and role model idolatry is whether the subject is active or passive.
College student idolatry
The connotation of idolatry among college students
College student idol worship is the psychology and behavior of young people who strive to pursue and identify with their ideal objects due to the needs of physical and mental development during their early university studies. Idolatry occurs at different ages, and the group of college students (usually between the ages of 18-25) is the main group where the phenomenon of idolatry occurs.
The general characteristics of this type of idolatry are the desire and extreme liking for the object of worship, but it also has its own peculiarities, including the individualization of self-consciousness and the rationalization of behavior. College students have just left their families and come to the new environment of the university, and their personality development is facing new environments and influencing factors, and self-awareness and self-concept are in a new stage of development.
The causes of college students' idolatry
First, it is in line with the university's own development laws and cultural needs. The college years are a period of rapid physical and psychological growth for college students, and as college students grow and become independent, their dependence on their parents will decrease, but it is also a period when they are prone to psychological confusion and emotional emptiness.
At this time, they need someone other than their parents to meet their emotional needs, and at this time, the idol chosen by college students becomes a new object of their psychological dependence. College students do not fully understand themselves, their values are easily changing, and they choose idols as objects of worship, which are idealized versions of themselves.
This idealized gap between oneself and one's idol promotes college students to shape themselves, establish goals, and work towards them. The need for belonging is another reason for college students to worship idols. The need to belong refers to the desire to be recognized by a certain group or organization, and idolatry provides a way for college students to integrate into the group.
At the same time, the continuous development of cultural life has also prompted college students to pursue pop culture more, entertainment idols are an active factor in pop culture, and the worship of entertainment idols by college students also reflects the influence of multiculturalism on them.
Second, the psychological complexity and peculiarities of college students. Although college students are close to adulthood in terms of physical development, they are not psychologically mature enough and are easily influenced by complex entertainment environments, thus forming a false perception of idolatry.
In ancient times, rulers used "idols" to control the minds of the people at the bottom of the collective; Today, idolatry is also a kind of collective activity, such as "rice balls" and "support associations", etc., which are collective organizations, and college students are more sensitive to collectivism and are more likely to participate in such collective activities.
College is also the stage when college students realize that they are adults, getting rid of the direct discipline of their parents, which makes it easier for them to return to their hearts and find idols that match them, and the idols they are looking for also present an almost perfect personality. However, in recent years, there has been a series of idol personality collapses, which has had a great impact on the development of college students.
Although the personality presented by idols is close to perfection, it is difficult to achieve in real life, making students yearn for an illusory life and stay away from the real world, which also widens their distance from reality and has a negative impact. The complexity and particularity of this series have contributed to the development of idolatry among college students.
Third, the development of mass media and information technology is promoted. The development of mass media, including newspapers, books, radio, television, and the Internet, has become the main means of disseminating information today. Before the 21st century, there were few forms of mass media in China, and the speed of transmission was slow. Since the beginning of the 21st century, the forms of mass media have diversified, and new media has spread rapidly and extensively.
Today's students live in an era of rapid development of electronic information technology, and mobile phones and computers have accelerated the speed at which they can obtain new information and receive news through various mass media channels.
Mass media and new media permeate all aspects of students' lives, and they can choose to know, understand, and choose idols through television. The emergence of self-media such as Weibo and Douyin has also played an important role in accelerating the spread of idol culture, providing a platform for the public to evaluate, judge and participate in discussions.
College student idolatry type
From an economic point of view, college students' idolatry is divided into productive idolatry and consumer idolatry. Productive idols are prominent people in various fields who contribute to the development of society, both on a material and spiritual level, and who have contributed to the development of society.
Famous scientists, teachers, thinkers, writers, and all the heroes of the times in ancient and modern China and abroad are classified as productive idols, and the worship of these characters is productive idolatry.
Consumer idols are a kind of idol group formed with the rapid development of culture and commerce, which is the product of consumer culture, which is characterized by the pursuit of fashion, fast consumption, high exposure and profit-making tendency.
Obviously, according to these standards, today's traffic singers, movie stars, and sports stars are typical consumer idols, and the worship of college students is consumer idolism. From the perspective of choice fields, college students' idolatry is divided into professional idolatry and non-professional idolatry.
Professional idol worship refers to the fact that college students choose outstanding figures in their majors as their idols, which helps college students deepen their professional learning and research, improve their interest in learning, and improve their professional level and ability.
Non-professional idolatry refers to the fact that college students choose outstanding talents who are not in their own major as the object of their worship, which is also conducive to cultivating a wide range of interests and hobbies of college students, broadening their knowledge, and learning more about content beyond books.
In the author's opinion, production idolatry and professional idol worship belong to role model idolatry, while consumer idol worship and non-professional idol worship belong to entertainment idolism.
In addition, there is idolatry of real and virtual characters, international idolatry, regional idolatry, and national idolatry. Different scholars have become more and more refined in their classification of college students' idolatry, and have continuously enriched and deepened the study of idolatry types.
The ideological and political educational value of college students' idolatry
"Ideological and political education is a kind of social practice activity, which enables a society or social group to exert a targeted, planned, and organized influence on its members through specific ideological concepts, political views, and moral standards, and to form ideological and moral qualities that meet the needs of a specific society or class."
The idol worship of college students reflects their own ideal pursuit and value orientation, and the positive guiding role of idols can better play the educational function of ideological and political education, and at the same time, ideological and political education has a leading role in the value and behavior of college students' idol worship.
First, the educational function of idolatry as a medium. "The value orientation of young people determines the value orientation of the whole society in the future". China pursues a people-oriented educational philosophy, cultivates successors for the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and seeks ambition, enthusiasm and strength in young people.
However, in recent years, keywords such as "rotten", "lying flat" and "Buddhism" have frequently appeared on the Internet, causing heated discussions among college students. These words reflect the dissatisfaction of college students with involution behavior and their negative attitude towards difficulties, and do not motivate students to devote themselves to the construction of the socialist cause with a positive attitude.
Therefore, idols can be used as a tool to promote mainstream culture in society, and students should be guided by the core values of socialism and positive energy when choosing idols. This can be used as a fulcrum for ideological and political education, to disseminate the excellent Chinese culture, and to improve the teaching efficiency of ideological and political education.
Secondly, the guiding function of using idols as mirrors. Idolatry has a positive and negative impact on students. On the one hand, the bad habits of idols themselves have a negative impact on students. Studying the problems and root causes of idolatry among students can sound the alarm and play a spurring role for educators to do a good job in students' ideological and political education.
At the same time, educators can strengthen the ideological and political education on the ideological concepts and moral qualities of college students by showing positive cases of idolatry.
On the other hand, idols have a leading role and can help college students correct their wrong values. Students have an important purpose and motivation for idol worship, and through the imitation and learning of idols, the students' self-development goals are achieved.
Finally, an educational strategy that satisfies inner needs with idols. With the continuous change and development of society, the variety of cultural products continues to increase, and the cultural value orientation is diversified, and the choice of idols by college students is also more diverse.
The independence and personality choices of college students reflect their pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty, and they choose high-quality idols to satisfy their inner spiritual needs. Encourage students to take these high-quality idols as role models, take their words and deeds as the driving force for their own development, use the power of idols to inspire them, and gradually cultivate a firm foundation of ideals and beliefs for college students.