The political demand of cultural studies to speak for and as the popular has made it relegate aesthetics as a ruling class ideology. However, the refusal to deal with criteria of distinction has subjected cultural studies to the criticism of its lack of self reflexivity. The article argues that aesthetic discourse is indispensable to the project of cultural studies because popular culture as articulated by the intellectuals is itself not free from discursive evaluation. Aesthetics, when justified on an ethical ground of self problematization rather than on a moral ground of self elevation, serves the purpose of illuminating some technical pitfalls of cultural studies in its formula of "textualizing cultural experience."