This reminds me of Hawthorne’s famous swipe at the Puritans. When they came to power in England, he wrote, they banned bear-baiting - not because it gave pains to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators. But that IS a valid reason; deriving pleasure from the suffering or degradation of another inevitably coarsens the soul. All those comfortable middle-class urbanites watching Honey Boo Boo are not indulging the better angels of their nature, to put it mildly.