What's the name of your favorite ancient beast?

Looking up the Chinese dictionary, the explanation of gluttony is as follows: gluttony: gluttony. 1, the legendary greedy beast, is often used as a decorative pattern on bronzes, which is called gluttonous pattern. 2. Greedy people or greedy people. 3. greedy people.

There are many derogatory meanings in the dictionary, which are very different from our current usage. There are many people who call themselves gourmets now. Most of them are self-deprecating on the surface, but they are actually proud. Maybe they can be complacent and live a comfortable life. Although the so-called gourmets are mostly successful and semi-successful people who can eat, eat, dare to eat and afford it, calling themselves gourmets is nothing more than teasing, emphasizing their superiority in eating and giving up greed. This is also the fundamental reason why the current gourmets can be respected by people. Respect will turn into hatred if you can eat and be greedy. Xia Jie and Shang Zhou are the representatives of such figures.

Investigate its origin, gluttony is not an animal, but a human being, a guy who advocates luxury, loves money and has no compassion. There is a story in Zuo Zhuan's Eighteen Years of Wengong: "Jinyun's family (Xia Guan in the Yellow Emperor's time) is a scholar, greedy for food and drink, accepting bribes from goods, and invading luxury." ... whether widowed or in need. People in the world are more fierce than three, which is called gluttony. "Therefore, gluttony is the son of Xia Guan Jinyun in Huangdi Neijing and a typical gluttonous and shameless person.

In the Zhou Dynasty, the image of gluttony was cast on a tripod filled with food to warn people not to be as greedy as gluttony. Later, it was gradually transformed into the necessary decoration of the tripod, and its original intention was gradually forgotten by people. As a symbol of gluttony and diet, gluttony spreads in people's oral and written works. Few people mentioned the original intention of abstinence and not indulgence.

Ancient rulers created gluttony, advocated frugality and persuaded greed, which was not only a political need, but also closely related to the low level of material production and the serious shortage of commodity supply at that time. Overeating will not only harm health, but also have a close relationship with the prosperity of the country. In ancient times, people only changed from egalitarian society to private ownership society, and the idea of equality still had great influence. Coupled with the lack of material production, the rulers occupy a large amount of food, which will cause the dissatisfaction of most people and increase the sense of social injustice. If they are frugal in diet, they will win people's support. Dayu was a positive model of that era, while Xia Jie and Shang Zhou were negative models. The greed and extravagance of Xia Jie and Shang Zhou aroused people's anger and hatred, which led to the demise of the country. There are many records on this point in the history books.

From people's hatred of Xia Jie and Shang Zhouwang's overeating, we can know that people are full of fear of hunger, and they can't think of anything more serious than "eating more" or "drinking more", so the condemnation of indulgence in food has become the most common voice in the whole society. Zhou people cast gluttony in the tripod to pass it on to future generations, just to learn the lessons of Shang and Zhou dynasties and warn future generations to avoid repeating the same mistakes. This has become one of the leading political thoughts of feudal society dominated by natural economy in China for thousands of years.

However, people's pursuit of food can not be limited to the decoration on the tripod or the propaganda of the rulers. If we had followed the requirements of the ruling class, China's food culture would not have developed to its present state. Fine clothes and delicious food are what everyone wants. There is a joke that "the content of corruption: money, beauty and food are all people's inner desires". Think about it. That's true. This is also the fundamental reason for the development of food culture and one of the basic reasons for social development. Without the pursuit of beauty, society will lose the motivation to move forward. China's decades of development also illustrates this point. This is probably the reason why gourmets still appear in large numbers today.

I think the definition of gluttony today should be this: you can eat, you can eat, you dare to eat, and you know how to eat without gluttony.