Zanni (an itinerant servant) in sixteenth-century commedia dell'arte . It's only in the late twentieth century that the question of gender starts to become increasingly central to this aesthetic about work. Image from "Lucy Tells The Truth," the 9 November 1953 episode of I Love Lucy . The asymmetry of power that cuteness revolves around is another compelling reminder of how aesthetic categories register social conflict. There can be no experience of any person or object as cute that does not somehow call up the subject's sense of power over those who are less powerful. But, as Lori Merish underscores, the fact that the cute object seems capable of making an affective demand on the subject -- a demand for care that the subject is culturally as well as biologically compelled to fulfill -- is already a sign that "cute" does not just denote a static power differential , but rather a dynamic and complex power struggle . Finally, the very idea of "interest" underlying the interesting points to the aesthetic judgment's unique role in facilitating "precise comparisons and contrasts between individuals or groups" and thus in negotiating disputes between them. As Jan Mieszkowsi notes, "interests never exist as unique, autonomous impulses, but only in and as their collisions with other interests." The fact that "before it can be considered as a preference or aim, an interest must be understood as a contradiction with other interests" means "any interest -- or a person, a tribe or a state -- is