What happened around 1900 to universal semantic systems like aesthetics and ethics when German society underwent a radical change from a stratificational to a functional form of social differentiation? Drawing on the aesthetic persuasions of various philosophies operative at the time, the study discusses the thought configurations on which the universal claims of aesthetic and moral communication builds. Taking the debate on trash and pulp as an example, it shows how most of the participants in the debate used the discourse on art for the homogenization, definition, and prioritization of their own milieu constructs. The booksellers trading in cheap literature were the only ones to respond in line with the new functional differentiation of society, exploiting art as a medium for the formation of a hierarchy within the economic system.