lack of aesthetic impact or power, to their own aesthetic ineffectuality. But that doesn't finally negate their status as aesthetic categories. And to me it makes them all the more worthy of our intellectual attention. During a conversation about this project, Ken Reinhard jokingly pointed out how these three aesthetic experiences can easily turn pathological, in a way that almost perfectly corresponds to Freud's categories of neurosis: phobia, in the case of cute (because cute objects can quickly become gross or disgusting); hysteria, in the case of zaniness; obsession, in the case of the interesting. I think I'm attracted to them for this reason as well, though I didn't realize this until he pointed it out! Could you explain a little more how the aesthetic categories that interest you acquire the capacity to reveal social conflicts? I'm not being willfully ignorant. My bias can be read back to Frank Sibley, who wrote about the way in which aesthetic justifications ultimately resolve, at least in written description, in non-aesthetic terms. However he also insisted upon the irreplaceable role of direct personal experience of the aesthetic object. No one can convince you of the beauty, elegance, or garishness of an object by describing it. The act of professing aesthetic pleasure or displeasure, in and of itself, is not interesting to me. What is interesting is the complexity of the ways in which people then defend these judgments (which they feel just as strongly compelled to do). As Simon Frith aptly puts it,