"would you consider yourself a pragmatist or an aesthete?"
this question was directed to me at work. at the time I could come up with nothing better than mumbling something about finding the healthy middle ground. So, here's an attempt at a more nuanced response to that question.

Let the practical things of our lives be beautiful. Not, that the responsible practical thing isn't beautiful in itself. But, let us lose a artificial distinction. We should reject any practicality that ignores the basic human need for beauty in our daily lives. And we should reject an aesthetic that does not understand beauty as in some way constituted by the practical resources and human needs involved in the production and transmission of the art.