Catherine Pepinster: Thank you Tara, your suffering has saved me from the Victor Meldrews

I took a few moments earlier last week to try a daft quiz. You know the kind: are you a spoilt brat? Is it time for a baby? Could you survive life in the countryside? This one was on the lines of: Are you a Victor Meldrew? It was inspired by the revelation that the majority of people in this country aged 35-45 are a whingeing, cringing lot, fed up with the state of the roads, the lousy schools, the even lousier teachers and the unspeakable children they teach. Apparently we think politicians corrupt, employers mean, and Britain not what it was. We have become what Mrs Thatcher called "moaning minnies".

My colleagues fully expected me to score maximum points but much to their surprise – and mine – I gained a paltry three out of 10. But things had changed. Modern life is not the slough of despond I'd thought. It's cheering, entertaining, and you can even learn something from the most tasteless moments. And for this revelation I have to thank Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, Christine Hamilton, Tony Blackburn, Uri Geller, Darren Day, Nigel Benn, Rhona Cameron and Nell McAndrew.

Last week I tuned into I'm a Celebrity – Get Me Out of Here, in which the aforementioned eight try to survive in the Australian jungle. The programme's format was developed in the Big Brother school of TV: you film people making fools of themselves and then get the viewers involved by enabling them to vote to further humiliate the participants. It's a banal form of entertainment and until now I couldn't see the attraction. But I'm a Celebrity works so well because, in the words of Christine Hamilton, it's about man's inhumanity to man.

Millions will no doubt watch in the hope of seeing Darren Day get it together with It girl Tara P-T or the gorgeous Nell McAndrew. They will want to watch the dreadful moment when Christine makes a pass at Tony Blackburn, or even better, at Rhona Cameron. But what works so well here is its biblical, eye-for-an eye treatment of people. Frightened of insects? In that case, Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, the viewers will vote for you to endure a shower of bugs. Suffer from claustrophobia? Then, Rhona Cameron, you will be the one the audience picks to be buried alive.

This is come-uppance TV, and watching the B-list celebrities get their just deserts is compelling. Plenty will sniff that television has reached its nadir, and that watching a weeping, screaming Tara endure the maggots slithering down her back is degrading.

But television, while arousing unsavoury emotions, also contains them through its very artificiality. And there is an opportunity to think, too, a moment to wonder why we have such unpleasant latent feelings.

The spectacle of fear on TV – or seen at the movies or the theatre – is a world away from the hysteria of the mob at the Roman circus or the guillotine or outside Peterborough magistrates court as Maxine Carr was brought to the dock after being charged in connection with the Soham murders. The baying crowd no doubt had some sentiments akin to some of ours when we watch I'm a Celebrity – delight that someone they had come to despise was enduring humiliation. But in the case of Maxine Carr, the crowd were not watching the nastiness of the occasion, they were part of it. They had come to gawp, and there was no occasion for learning anything from the experience.

As Miss Carr's lawyer pointed out, she is a woman who is innocent and the law must take its course. Last week Miss Carr appeared at another hearing by video link. The crowd had forced her trip to court to be abandoned. On screen, she wept, a broken woman.

Back in Australia, Tara's tears flowed fast, too. She could have quit the maggot shower, but stuck with it, and as a reward her fellow hungry celebs were given a meal. Amid all the backbiting, here was a woman with guts, who showed that even the unlikeliest people can be generous and altruistic. Now that is one salient lesson – and a good reason not to be one of the Meldrews.