A. Even to suggest, in the recent climate, that an artwork might be good because it is pleasurable, as opposed to cognitively, morally or politically beneficial, is to court derision. B. Much of the discourse about beauty since the Eighteenth century had deployed a notion of the ‘aesthetic’, and so that notion in particular came in for criticism. C. The twentieth century has not been kind to the notions of beauty or the aesthetic. D. This disdain for the aesthetic may have roots in a broader cultural Puritanism, which fears the connection between the aesthetic and pleasure.