ABSTRACT
The same process, it can be argued, served to heighten the exclusivity of the upper classes so that the rise of politeness seems to fit with the model of a progressive divorce of elite from popular culture during the early modern period (Muchembled 1978; Revel 1989: 167 ff.; Everitt 1969: 48 ff.; Burke 1978; Wrightson 1982; Thompson 1973-4; Reay 1985a; Fletcher and Stevenson 1985; Borsay 1989: 284-308). The model asserts that while, in earlier centuries, clear and unquestioned distinctions in social rank were not matched by clear and self-consciously elaborated distinctions in cultural forms, this pattern changed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with European elites seeking more vigorously to assert differences between themselves and other members of
Social identity in 18th-century England 363
However, as attention among economic historians has shifted in recent years to consumption as a key feature of the eighteenth-century British economy (in the words of one historian, from a supply-side to a demand-side approach to economic history [Neil McKendrick in McKendrick, Brewer, and Plumb 1985: 5]), there has been an accompanying shift in the assessment of the social personality of members of a commercial society.4 Commercial personality conceived under the sign of consumption rather than accumulation required such qualities as the desire for pleasure and comfort, a willingness to spend, playfulness, and ambitions to emulate and display. The latter were expressed in capacities and interests concerned with the "ornamental" aspects of life, such as taste, style, fashion, and politeness. These aspects of commercial culture seem better personified by Roxana than Robinson.
