Bedlam in the 21st Century

[AboveTheSalt]

The government, in 1770, ended the practice of allowing the public to visit the Bethlehem Hospital of St Mary's in London because it 'tended to disturb the tranquillity of the patients' by 'making sport and diversion of the miserable inhabitants'.

I have taken this quote from an article in today's Observer. It compares the practice 250 years ago of people being allowed into lunatic asylums to poke fun at the inmates with ITV's hugely popular "Jeremy Kyle Show" - Link.

The thing that struck me about the article was the idea that programs such as this, like a major pile-up on the M1 are endlessly fascinating. As the author comments at the beginning and end of her article:
"All human life is here: cheating husbands, delinquent children, tearaway teens, feckless fathers, the long-term unemployed, the clinically depressed, wife-beaters, husband-beaters, child-beaters, victims of abuse, perpetrators of abuse, alcoholics, junkies, the sexually insecure, the sexually confused, the sexually polymorphous."
and
"It occurs to me, though, ... that it's not just the fatherless young layabouts who are the Jeremy Kyle Generation. It's all of us."

I have never actually listened to the program although I have occasionally watched it (soundlessly) at the gym when I have forgotten to take my MP3 player and cricket is on Sky Sports.