I’ve always the liked the word “iconoclast,” which I first discovered as one of the thesaurus-busting insults that Captain Haddock used to spew at the villains in Tintin comics. (I actually used to look these up. At one point, I knew what a “Bashi-bazouk” and an “anthropophagus” were. And people tell you your hobbies are dumb?)

Historically, the word “iconoclast” originated to describe someone who destroyed religious images (the word literally means “icon breaker.”) It was used to describe jerks like eighth-century Byzantine emperor Leo the Syrian, who ordered his goons to confiscate silk and silver goodies from church altars under the cover of strict obedience to the second commandment. (That’s the one about graven images, if you’re stumped like that dork on Colbert).

Today, the word has taken on a much broader usage: an iconoclast is any non-conformist who flaunts or disagrees with accepted norms and traditions. You no longer have to take a poleaxe to a Byzantine statue of the Virgin in order to be called an iconoclast (though it probably wouldn’t hurt).

I have certain tastes that I think are iconoclastic–personal preferences that run wildly in the face of critical consensus. Everyone does. There’s always some guy on the Internet board who prefers post-Sorkin West Wing, or likes Boo Berry better than Count Chocula, or thinks Elliott Gould was a better Marlowe than Humphrey Bogart, or whatever. Sometimes these are just affectations designed to grab attention and/or hipster-cred (“Godfather III is clearly the best Godfather!”) but I think they’re usually sincere.

I’ve never kept a list of my own pop-culture iconoclasms, but, off the top of my head, they would probably include:

• 1970’s Sunflower is a better Beach Boys’ album than Pet Sounds.
• Celia Weston’s Jolene was a better Alice waitress than Polly Holliday’s Flo.
• I Vitelloni is a better Fellini movie than 8 1/2 or La Dolce Vita.
• Oh Mercy is a better Dylan comeback than Time Out of Mind
• John Stanley’s Little Lulu is a better run of classic kids’ comics than Carl Barks’ Uncle Scrooge.
• Smashing Pumpkins’ cover of “Landslide” is better than the Fleetwood Mac original.
• Marnie is a better late Hitchcock movie than Psycho.
• Timothy Dalton was a better Bond than anybody else since Connery.
  
• Felicity’s hair was better short.

What about yours? Go on, ‘fess up. It’s okay to like Michael Bolton’s cover of “(Sittin’ on) the Dock of the Bay” more than the original. Here: I’ll even open the message boards back up.