My column of two weeks ago on the differences between visual art and fiction apparently caused some ripples in the art world. And nowhere else, of course. I gave a talk at an art gallery at which a curator told me that my column (on "art about art," and what I saw as its nihilistic tendencies) had been more talked about than anything I had written this year. Then an editor, obviously unaware of this dramatic controversy, asked me if I could come up with a couple more things about men's fashion.

This illustration of the two solitudes -- art people and non-art people, each a shadow world of the other -- points out a bizarre contemporary situation. Each group has no idea what the other thinks or doesn't think of them, and neither group seems to care. The small pool of educated people (in fields such as politics, law or media) still has little interest in visual art; the art world has no idea of its irrelevance in the larger world of educated people.

In my experience, the art people speak only to art people, and believe, from this unrepresentative sample group, that people who read an intelligent newspaper -- sensitive people like judges or cabinet ministers or television producers -- are arguing daily with their husbands over the tea and toast about whether the paper's art critic has really understood the limitations of postpainterly abstractionism.

In fact, for many if not most of my acquaintances who aren't actually artists, newspaper articles about the art world have a status only marginally higher than that of the bridge column. They are perceived as serving a niche equally small.

I happen to know that the column on art about art was not, by a long shot, in the "most-talked-about" category. Any pronouncement on men's bathing suits hooks an audience 10 times as large and much more opinionated and excitable.

And I have an odd position, a kind of double life, between two worlds. I'm constantly pushing media people -- particularly the producers of so-called culture panels on TV -- to take an interest in contemporary art, which they steadfastly refuse to do. A documentary producer recently said that she wanted to work with me, and did I have any ideas for a show? And I said, "Yes, how about art?" And she said, "Ah, no, that's not what I meant. How about something on popular music?" Then a book publisher asked me if I had any ideas for a non-fiction book. And I said "Yes, how about art?" And she said, and I quote, "Sounds dumb."

She then asked, "How about something on popular music?"

On the other hand, art people see me as a Philistine hack. A curator approached me at a party recently and said that one of my articles attacking postmodern artspeak was "typical journalism." I guess that summed up its worthlessness. Art people are horrified that an untrained outsider who doesn't speak any postmodern dialect would dare to meddle in their private affairs.

By the way, just for the record, when doing a graduate degree in French literature, I had occasion to read a great deal of theory, much of the same theory, in fact, that now informs most art criticism. It's assumed that because I don't write in that dialect that I don't understand it. One enraged insider wrote a letter to the editor insisting that my thinking would be much improved if I simply read certain theorists. I had already read several of the books she suggested, but it was unthinkable to her that one could read them and disagree with them.

This is another problem endemic to the art world: the insistence that those who object to established truths are simply uneducated. When I gave my talk in the gallery last week, I was mildly critical of the artist who was showing. Not terribly critical: I liked some aspects of the work and not others. A curator took offence, and accused me of not having looked at the work, not understanding art history, and, worst of all, looking at it "as a writer," not as an art expert, which clearly disqualified me. The idea that one can look at obtuse or opaque work, understand the issues that inform it, think about it, and still dislike it is not a popular one.

Afterward, I chatted on the phone with the documentary producer and told her about the disagreement. "That's rather quaint," she said. "People still argue somewhere about art. How quaint." There is a bitter edge, I think, to her humour about this: She has a degree in English, but she regularly dismisses things such as the writing of fiction and the creation of sculpture as the indulgent hobby of those who don't have to make a living. This scorn comes in part, I think, from having spent too long trying to convince television networks to fund any project other than home-decorating or dating shows.

She doesn't want to bother any more. And partly she just wants to forestall any more suggestions from me that she do a show on art. And partly she, like so many educated people, is just afraid of finding yet more art she doesn't understand.

I put it to the art world that this widespread attitude is a problem which they share a responsibility to resolve.