Jerome McGann answers one of those questions in the Critical Inquiry end of theory symposium in a way I like. The premise of the question is that "the aesthetic" is in danger in the wider society, and that English professors need to do something to rescue "the aesthetic." Jerome points out, more or less, that it is the English professors themselves who are clueless about "the aesthetic." I know this is a familiar argument that Perloff and others have elaborated countless times, but I think it bears repetition.