[bambax]

The problem with what you "like" is, you have to have developed a distinct taste first before it means anything.

To use a less controversial and difficult field than art, literature or philosophy as an analogy: in food, what you "like" before you have any taste, is sugar. (If one tries to extract PG's tastes from this essay, they look a little like sugar: in literature, funny stories or page turners with lots of action; in pictures, "brilliant colors".)

Authorities are not always corrupt or unimaginative; sometimes, they're educated and there is something to learn from them. Fads exist of course (esp. of the "latest" kind); but authors or artists who have been considered the greatest for a long time, probably are.