in many cases, books do survive because generation after generation after generation has been forced to read them.

I'm not going to argue that canonicity isn't self-perpetuating to some extent. Leonard Diepeveen has an interesting look at the ways in which anthologies feed off of and perpetuate ideas about time periods and their authors, to give just one example. At the end of the day, there's a whole range of factors that determine which texts survive the 'test of time' and which ones do not (and academia certainly plays a role in that process). I would add that significant amounts of time and energy are often spent on deciding which authors to include in course syllabi and curricula. Moreover, while it's absolutely your prerogative to dismiss any book for whatever reason you like, personally, I've found that I can get a lot more out of books if I give their authors credit for having something interesting to say rather than simply getting annoyed at the fact that they're 'canonical' or dismissing them because they're 'popular'.

Invoking journalism only serves to muddy the water. We're talking "great books" not things written last week. We're talking works that stand the test of time (however they accomplish it), not immediate works for immediate digestion.

I invoke journalism only to point out that the publication of Orientalism doesn't mean we should throw out everything written before 1978.

I don't disagree with you that people telling you that you have to like Austen (or anything else for that matter) are assholes, if not idiots. I don't like Game of Thrones. That means that I get left out of some conversations amongst my friends, and people told me that they think it's a great show, but no one tells me I have to like it. On the flip side, I'm not going to tell my friends that Game of Thrones has no value or that they only like it because it's popular. But, despite my dislike of Game of Thrones, I recognize that it does interesting things in terms of world development and subverting TV audience expectations, and that lets me have productive things to say about it rather than simply dismissing it.

My disagreement with your objection relates to the way "great books" are inflicted on others: as thought-provoking, as containing (or describing) truth.

I don't think anyone who teaches literature actually believes that books contain "truth" in any objective way, at least. But yes, people tend to teach books that they find thought-provoking. If I'm going to spend my time trying to get students to think about books, the arguments they make, and the ways in which they make them, I'm sure as hell going to choose books that I think have interesting arguments to make (and/or books that make arguments in interesting ways). I don't expect my students to like all (or even any) of the books that they read, but I do expect them to be willing to engage with those books and the arguments they make.