aesthetic critiques of morality/politics are both inherently reactionary and tbh just kind of eyeroll-inducing. “feminist insistence on verbal consent takes the sexiness out of life” “cheap block housing is ugly” “lab-grown meat would be artificial and inauthentic” grow the fuck up. capitalism has constructed elaborate dreamworlds where you can have whatever dumbass aesthetic experience you want, go enjoy it there
With the possible exception of a few extremely-baseline bottom-of-the-Maslow-hierarchy things like “getting enough calories,” “breathing clean air,” “not freezing to death at night,” etc. –
– human welfare is, essentially, aesthetic. “This kind of thing makes me thrive psychologically, but that kind of thing is soul-killing and I hate it.” Jobs, social recognition, the whole nine yards. The use of the word “aesthetic” here is serving only to dismiss certain kinds of preferences and interests for no especially good reason.
Some preferences and interests are super awkward, yeah, and conflict with other ones in a serious way. Sometimes we have to say “I don’t care how much sexiness it adds to the world for you, your model of gender interaction is making life a nightmare for a lot of other people, and so we’re going to crack down on it.” But “your desires don’t matter because TV is available as a substitute” is a terrible argument that can be applied to…well, anyone’s desires.