Yes. In other words, your aesthetic preference is what you like, not what you wish you liked. I believe that what Phil Goetz is struggling with in the original post -- an extremely valid struggle that I think we can all relate to -- is something like a three-layered conflict between (a) what he likes, (b) what he would like to like, and (c) what he would like to like to like. (a) and (c) are negative -- he does not like the Great Fugue and would not like to like to like it, but certain pressures make him feel in some respects as though (b) he would like to like it.
Your comment gives me an opportunity to clarify one other thing. Aesthetic judgments are often based in part, though I believe almost never wholly, on factual beliefs of some kind. Insofar as those might be mistaken, I think it does present a limited sense in which I might be wrong to like something, but only wrong relative to my own meta-preferences. To construct a silly example, imagine I like Wagner's music in part because I am under the impression that he was a morally upright person. (This might sound like a bad reason for liking someone's music, but I would argue that things like that factor into our aesthetic judgments really often.) Now, it's unlikely that even my belief about Wagner's moral character would cause me to like his music if I truly found it viscerally unpleasant, so I do think that a core of more purely aesthetic judgment remains in most cases -- but let's say that my positive aesthetic judgment is made wildly positive by my belief about Wagner's moral character, or that a slightly negative (just worse than indifferent) aesthetic judgment is made slightly positive by my belief. Since Wagner was not a morally upright person, though, I think it's fair to say that the portion of my aesthetic judgment about his music that is informed by that belief is simply wrong. However, I don't think there are -- by definition -- any aesthetic judgments that rely entirely on facts.
There are definitely people who dislike Wagner's music because of his anti-Semitism.
I'm trying to like Beethoven's Great Fugue.
"This piece alone completely changed my life and how I perceive and appreciate music."
"Those that claim to love Beethoven but not this are fakers, frauds, wannabees, but most of all are people who are incapable of stopping everything for 10 minutes and reveling in absolute beauty, absolute perfection. Beethoven at his finest."
"This is the absolute peak of Beethoven."
"It's now my favorite piece by Beethoven."
These are some of the comments on the page. Articulate music lovers with excellent taste praise this piece to heaven. Plus, it was written by Beethoven.
It bores me.
The first two times I listened to it, it stirred no feelings in me except irritation and impatience for its end. I found it devoid of small-scale or large-scale structure or transitions, aimless, unharmonious, and deficient in melody, rhythm, and melodic or rhythmic coordination between the four parts, none of which I would care to hear by themselves (which is a key measure of the quality of a fugue).
Yet I feel strong pressure to like it. Liking Beethoven's Great Fugue marks you out as a music connoisseur.
I feel pressure to like other things as well. Bitter cabernets, Jackson Pollack paintings, James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake, the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, the music of Arnold Schoenberg, and Burning Man. This is a pattern common to all arts. You recognize this pattern in a work when:
Here are some theories as to how a work becomes the darling of its medium or genre:
(Don't assume that the same theory is true for each of my examples. I think that the wine hierarchy and Alban Berg are nonsense, Jackson Pollack is an interesting one-trick pony, and Burning Man is great but would be even better with showers.)
I could keep listening to the Great Fugue, and see if I, too, come to love it in time. But what would that prove? Of course I would come to love it in time, if I listen to it over and over, earnestly trying to like it, convinced that by liking the Great Fugue I, too, would attain the heights of musical sophistication.
The fact that people come to like it over time is not even suggested by theory 1 - even supposing the music is simply so great as to be beyond the appreciation of the typical listener, why would listening to it repeatedly grant the listener this skill?
I have listened to it a few times, and am growing confused as to whether I like it or not. Why is this? Since when does one have to wonder whether one likes something or not?
I am afraid to keep listening to the Great Fugue. I would come to like it, whether it is great art or pretentious garbage. That wouldn't rule out any of my theories.
How can I figure out which it is before listening to it repeatedly?