The planets must be in strange alignment at the moment for I find myself in agreement with the General Synod of the Church of England: this is Not Supposed To Happen.

The Synod yesterday voted overwhelmingly to record their “concerns” at the media’s tendency to “exploit the humiliation of human beings for public entertainment”. One speaker suggested that such shows may be “fatally eroding” standards of behaviour.

I am not a great advocate of the theory that life mirrors art but when popular culture so regularly, willingly and eagerly accords celebrity, fame and wealth upon those who do little but insult, belittle, embarrass and/or abuse other people (fill in your own examples here), at least some members of society will inevitably conclude that insulting, belittling, embarrassing and/or abusing others is not only acceptable behaviour but actually something of which to be proud.

I’ve turned to a random page in the TV listings magazine and tomorrow evening alone, there are six peaktime programmes on the five terrestrial channels that involve behaviour of the type criticised by the Synod – The Weakest Link, Fame Academy (twice), Dragon’s Den, You’ve Been Framed, Dancing On Ice (twice) and PokerFace. Participants in all those programmes will be insulted, embarrassed and belittled – and next series, those insulters, embarrassors and belittlers will be back to point out other people’s deficiencies all over again (and probably for a higher fee, too).

If “bums on seats” is the only metric that matters, then fair play: a very large proportion of the British population will watch one or more of those programmes tomorrow night – but they will do so as much to watch someone fall flat on their arse (literally, in the case of Dancing On Ice) at least as much as to see someone triumph through talent. But, as ever, the things that count the most cannot themselves be counted.

Channel 4′s bigwigs publicly (and disgracefully) admitted that the Celebrity Big Brother racism row reinvigorated a tired and stale format and saved the series. The ultimate conclusion of thought processes like these is that series 29 of CBB will have to feature real-time (and preferably interactive) torture and murder to keep the ratings – if not the participants – alive.

I don’t believe “reality TV” should be banned any more than competitive sport should be banned in schools – life isn’t always pleasant and competition is one of homo sapiens‘ base survival instincts – but if a society prefers to venerate those who take pleasure in the pain of others (aka sadists), over and above those who compete in the first place, surely that is a sign of society is in real moral trouble?