Accusations of class warfare are one of the most common rhetorical tools of politics.

Preoccupation with economic class is not new to our political life. Its presence in our political discourse dates to the ratification debates on the Constitution in 1787 and 1788. Then, the Anti-Federalists’ concern was that merchants, bankers, lawyers and manufacturers, especially from the mid-Atlantic states and New England, would be advantaged by the new system. The Federalists feared that mob democracy would rule the country in the interests of the masses rather than the public good.

Unease about the possibility of class warfare persists even now. Since running for the presidency in 2007, Barack Obama has consistently invoked fairness and used the middle class in his rhetoric, insisting that policies should protect the middle class. Republicans have insisted that Obama and the Democrats are, by so strongly supporting the middle class, waging a class war against job creators.

While slavery was a key issue before the Civil War, sectional antagonisms between North and South were aggravated by the different economic bases of the two regions. The class warfare there became relevant because the different kinds of economy (industrial vs. agrarian) engendered different sectional attitudes about appropriate political conduct and social manners.

While the prospect of political class warfare is bad, it is not the worst thing. Laws can be repealed or amended by new Congresses when elections seat new members.

The more dangerous kind of class warfare goes on in the social world, where the manners we all use are formed and solidified and make the basis on which we interact politically.

“Class” does not refer only to economic class. In its social definition, “class” implies grace and manners. Applied to individuals, it denotes a gentleman or a lady. Using that definition, two television shows dealing in the same subject matter differently illustrate a clash of manners.

Similarly, class warfare is also at work among our television programming.

The History Channel has increasingly adopted reality TV programming that centers on shows such as “Pawn Stars.” The show, I’ll grant, is interesting. At a pawn shop in Las Vegas, hundreds of customers daily bring artifacts to the store and the shop’s employees determine what the thing is, tell us something about it and give an idea of its value.

In some ways, “Pawn Stars” and the others are reminiscent of one of my favorite shows, “Antiques Roadshow.”

But the two are fundamentally different, and diverge at important points. “Antiques Roadshow,” begun in Britain, has been running since 1979. It and its American counterpart, began in 1997, are operated by public broadcasters whose interest is not merely pecuniary. On public television, the shows don’t exist for the sake of a profit margin. Realizing the success of “Pawn Stars,” however, the History Channel has begun an additional incarnation of the show in Louisiana.

On “Antiques Roadshow,” people bring in their family heirlooms as a point of curiosity: How much would this piece of furniture, this letter or this lamp fetch at auction, or for how much money should it be insured?

On “Pawn Stars,” the store’s visitors want to either sell or pawn their items. Their interest is in money. They tell their stories about how they acquired the objects, but those stories take the opposite role they do in “Antiques Roadshow.” There, the stories are the primary interest and the value is secondary. On “Pawn Stars,” value is primary and the stories often sound as mere bits of trivial information or like a question asked for formality’s sake.

While “Pawn Stars” does often make use of experts in some fields, they are not the main focus. Primarily, customers deal with the store’s employees. On “Antiques Roadshow,” visitors talk with experts who constantly appear on the show and, consequently, are able to cultivate a personality that goes beyond their ability to place an economic value on an object.

Part of “Antiques Roadshow’s” draw is that it travels from place to place, so it showcases a wide variety of locales. “Pawn Stars” is a victim of its immobility. Being situated in Las Vegas means that one of the most common comments from the people who walk into the store is that they need the money for their vacation or for their gambling funds.

Simply put, “Antiques Roadshow” is a more classy endeavor, putting its emphasis on things bigger than money or an individual, such as the human experience and connections to the past; “Pawn Stars” is more like any other TV show whose goal is to satisfy viewers’ entertainment wants and do so by discussing money.

The Constitution prevents a legally sanctioned nobility, but that does not mean we should also reject an aristocracy of manners or refuse to prioritize some of them over others. Perhaps that is what our polarized political rhetoric or tolerance for minority groups and individuals who do not fit into our definitions of “normal” depend on. An aristocracy of manners, where we all recognized that some behaviors are preferable to others, might do us some good. Results aren’t everything. How we get there is important, too.