Even to use the word “Aesthetic” in casual conversation is a sure way to alienate your audience.  It is a foreign, archaic word, like “metaphysics” or “quotidian” or “stoic.”  It’s not just that our vocabulary has narrowed.  We have become a practical people.  Functionality, objectivity, measurability are the words of the day.  And really why not?  Beauty (it is supposed) will not save the ozone layer, or make the computer faster, or improve your SAT scores.  Art is not science.  Science got us to the moon.  And thus, the virtue in having aesthetic concerns or of being as “aesthete” is lost to us.  That is, except in the domain of food.  And there it is very much alive.