Reality is, of course, a rather harsh environment to start with, but when you are talking about reality TV, it can be downright ugly!

Yes, I am talking about the current season of the reality show “Big Brother,” which most of you probably won’t admit to watching, but which has been a guilty pleasure of mine since the first season aired in 2000.

Unfortunately, watching this summer’s “Big Brother 15” has been much less a pleasure and much more a source of guilt than ever before. Along with hundreds of thousands of other fans of the CBS show, I have been subjected to the daily brutalizations of mob psychology as one bully after another has tried to psychologically destroy his or her opponents on the show.

There have always been occasional meltdowns and crudities on “Big Brother,” but they were usually incidental to the strategic planning, skillful negotiations and alliance building that were needed to get to the final two or three and then ultimately to be voted the winner by a jury consisting of evicted Houseguests.

But this year, whether through malefic planning by CBS or plain dumb luck, “Big Brother” has turned into a freak show. Cast members have made headlines for racism, exhibitionism, drug use, allegations of child molestation and plain-old vile despicable behavior.

So why not just stop watching?

Call it the fascination of the abomination — the inability to turn away from a train wreck or to stop yourself from renting one more slasher film from Red Box. But I am sticking with my own theory that you can learn an awful lot about human behavior by watching people engage each other under the pressure of various artificial stimuli such as the chance to win half a million dollars, along with the very real group dynamics that occur when 16 strangers live together under a microscope. This season may even be the most honest representation of human character ever on TV, as the inhibitions of being watched by millions of viewers seem to have worn off and the Houseguests have largely been reduced to the most basic animal instincts of greed, fear and domination.

I won’t bore you with the details of how the show works, because if you watch it you already know — and if you don’t watch it, you almost certainly don’t care. Suffice it to say that the show involves a dozen or more Houseguests who are under constant surveillance while they remain locked up together in a “house” on a CBS studio lot somewhere in Los Angeles. Every week, two or more of the Houseguests are nominated for elimination by a weekly Head of Household, and then are voted out by their fellow cast members.

The basic premise of the show is really a rather straightforward and programmatic process that provides viewers a rooting interest in their favorites, a booing interest in the inevitable villains, and a general interest in seeing who has the best gameplay and whether it is rewarded by eviction or the jackpot.

But this year has been something altogether different. Although there have been a few decent Houseguests such as Nick (voted out on Week 2) and Elissa (still hanging on in Week 9 despite repeated efforts to evict her), most of the cast members are shameless egoists who think they can do or say anything without consequence. Maybe we are watching the inevitable outcome of the coarsening of the culture that we have experienced as a result of the decline of the family in America, or maybe this is just how people have always behaved when they thought they could get away with it.

Setting the tone early on, Houseguests Aaryn, Gina Marie and Amanda made a special effort to evict the two black Houseguests, Howard and Candice, and have spoken of them vindictively, dismissively and stereotypically, all the while envisioning a world where they themselves are the innocent victims of people’s false claims of racism.

Perhaps one of the most despicable characters on the show is Andy, who has secured the confidence of virtually every other Houseguest only to betray their plans, hopes and secrets to someone else — usually within about 10 minutes of swearing eternal allegiance to his victim.

Andy, who has earned the nickname Ratboy on Internet blogs, serves only one true master — the queen bully Amanda, a woman who insists on stripping down to her thong underwear whenever she knows she has a broad audience and then takes offense when another Houseguest calls her “the Stripper.” Amanda thus far has used Ratboy and her own “showmance” boyfriend McCrae — also known as McLazy because he has never been known to do any work other than stealing beer and hauling pizza to his bed — to totally dominate the game without winning even one of the many competitions held every week.

Although there is a conspiracy theory making the rounds that Amanda has a “fix” on the championship due to some “illicit arrangement,” it is more reasonable to conclude that like many sociopaths she is a genius of manipulation and psychology and knows how to get what she wants without seeming to dirty her own fingers — at least in her own mind!

The thing is, those of who are outside the house can see every dishonest statement, every lie, every betrayal, and yet we watch in pained discomfort as one after another of the relatively decent Houseguests have been voted out of the house, and the horrid human beings who are left compliment each other on how deserving they are of victory.

You want to know why I watch this show? Because Rod Serling is dead, and they don’t make dramatic shows like “The Twilight Zone” anymore to cast light on human hypocrisy and the Seven Deadly Sins.

The only place on TV these days to watch human gargoyles slowly reveal their true character is on “Big Brother.” And what most of us are waiting for in hopeful anticipation is the moment of blinding recognition when the gargoyles get to look in the mirror and see themselves for who they really are.

Now, that would be a show of reality worth waiting for!