The buck stops with you, because art isn't a competition. Maybe it is for the artists, but not from your end - it's just what you enjoy. ... If he still wants to look down his nose at me, who gives a shit? Get out of my house, right? But I think the true art-lover will say, "I'm glad you experience something that's so meaningful to me, even if your taste is blunter and cruder than mine."

I'm sorry, but that's a very naive view of "how it works". The elite art cadre certainly promotes the belief that there's a lot more to art than what you or I personally like. They're the ones that influence, by their status, what students will be indoctrinated in, and what artworks they will be expected to deem good, even as construction workers mistake the "good" stuff for trash. (This has happened before.) Even as the "art" in front of public buildings, under the full endorsement of the art elite, is a blight on the landscape.

If it were just a matter of "enjoy what you like", I'd have the same view as you do. But there is significant money spent indoctrinating students in one view of art -- which unlike science, lacks a stopping-buck. There is the pretense that you have to enjoy Shakespeare, or the latest splotches on a canvas, to "truly" appreciate art. And as long as they promote their priesthood that decides which art is blessed, and gets the huge grants for museums to "study" and promote it, even as they cant substantiate their opinions ... well, then I have a problem.