The Historicity of Elite Distinction: Selected Themes

Abstract

A researcher concerned with the comparative analysis of distinction is of course particularly interested in the studies available about those places and periods in which the ostentation of the elite was outstandingly spectacular.¹ At stake, in all probability, were self-affirmation and glorification (quite often in relation to political power), but important dissimilarities should not be under-estimated. Our aspiration here is obviously not a systematic comparison between such cases. The more modest ambition of this chapter is to focus attention on five revealing themes, namely: the significant variability of attitudes toward distinction in ‘primitive’ communities, the prevailing logics behind sumptuary laws, the effects of political revolutions, the issue of constraints when upholding social superiority and the impact of a new world of mass consumption.