I know this doesn’t make total theological sense, but over Easter I had an epiphany. Not a spiritual revelation, more a political eureka, a sudden understanding of what it is that’s starting to go terribly wrong in the nation’s public head.

It happened while I was on a family visit to the Natural History Museum in London. There, in one condensed moment, I saw why it is that we find politics a repulsive turn-off. Not just politics, but also newspapers, television, the arts, anything in fact that purports to engage us in a conversation about public life.

While the Prime Minister is proposing one poll over Europe, another was published a few days ago suggesting more than half of us might not bother to vote in the next general election. As for local and European elections, we may get down to single figures (I’m not sure whether that’s percentages or actual people).

Meanwhile, in the Natural History Museum I had my revelatory moment. I, my wife and children were all suddenly struck dumb by the futility of it all. Not the stuffed giraffes and elephants, which were terrific and, as far as we were concerned, suffered an extremely informative death. No, it was the relentless, raucous, lapel-grabbing interactivity of much of the newer displays that was so off-putting. You couldn’t walk a centimetre without a bright neon sign urging you to push a button to see how many farmers Mount Etna fried a year. Turn a corner, and a yellow motorised bumblebee the size of a fit gundog flapped down on metal chains and insisted that you find out how much honey was produced in Guatemala by shouting the word “buzz” up its fundament.

The sum result was a quiet disappointment on the faces of the children doing all the pushing and popping. The thwarping display cases invited participation in a process, only to lead you to the conclusion that the process was not worth pursuing. A large talking ant-hill urged you to spit on a glowing red saucepan to find out whether ants masticate grass. That’s exciting. So you spat on the saucepan, and a small sign lit up, flashing, “Yes. They do.” That’s dull.

The moment of revelation, my state-of-the-nation epiphany, came when we entered the section devoted to freaks of nature. Sounds good, doesn’t it? There in front of me were four extremely large representations of destructive forces, including earth and fire. Water was illustrated by a trickling stream down a concrete slab, with a sign saying “Water”. Alongside it, a large, square column had its top foot-high section slowly topple over forward and backward on hinges. Attached to its side was a sign with the word “Gravity”.

There I stood, wondering what was the hourly fee of the exhibitions consultancy that recommended the museum illustrate the magnificent, mysterious force of gravity by a square block of column slowly yawning on its hinges. How much time had gone into the construction, how much space on this our all too precious Earth had been taken up, stolen, by this exhibit? I was lost in irate reverie, a confused man standing in front of a snapping pillar. Around me, children ran everywhere in interactive frustration, mindlessly pulling at any protuberance in the demented hope it would do something, pressing walls, punching fire extinguishers, jumping up and down on cracks in the floor. Meanwhile, flip went the pillar, backwards. “Gravity”. Flip again forwards. “Gravity”. Flip back again. “Gravity. Do you see?” Suddenly, everything became clear.

Interactivity is a superficial sham leading only to hunger and emptiness. It deludes us into thinking we’re taking part; we’re “having a say”. By pushing a button, we’re made to feel more involved, but that button is never really going to launch a missile or appoint a judge. It’s extremely benign. At best, it supplies information; at worst, it condemns some Z-rate celebrity to spending another night in the jungle with Ant and Dec.

And yet, the world is conspiring to make our whole life completely interactive. Despite widespread political apathy, we’re told that voting in elections will be made easier by the introduction of online ballots, or that we can vote in supermarkets or by some other eye-catching method like being able to nail our preferred candidate to a cross. Process is replacing content, and the more exciting and sensory the process, the more we’ll be deluded into thinking the non-existent content has been shaped by us.

This collapse into illusion reached pitch-perfect illustration this week with the announcement of a new television programme, a political version of Pop Idol, in which ITV will allow us to turn a member of the public into the ideal political candidate. The chances are that the winning candidate will either be a pro-hanging, anti-fox-hunting, pro-stem-cell research, anti-GM foods mass of contradictory but populist opinions, or so insipid and consensualist that he or she is no different from any one of the bland junior ministers running government departments today.

Interactivity implies participation. The pseudo-dogma behind it is that the powers that be are “giving the public what they want”. In television it’s bolstered by urgent appeals to press the red button if we want to vote on the colour of Jon Snow’s tie. “Giving the public what they want” is the limp excuse of a TV executive asked to defend a 13-part documentary series about celebrity thigh tattoos. “Putting the public in charge” of schools and hospitals is the get-out clause for politicians who know there’s not enough money to sort everything, but who want to make damn sure they don’t get the blame when it all goes belly-up.

And “I’m only giving the public what it wants” is the retreaded apology of the newspaper editor who prints stories leading to celebrity hell and occasional tragedy. So, if the Beckhams part, it’s our fault because we bought the papers.

But who says the public know what they want anyway? Hitler and Mussolini won popular votes, and in this country the public very nearly voted The Vicar of Dibley the best sitcom of all time. We need a mediator. We all know we’re greedy, unimaginative fools, but we should mistrust anyone who tries to ingratiate themselves with us by saying it’s not really his or her job to challenge us.

There’s a difference between mindlessly consuming what’s in front of you because that’s what you really want, and because that’s all you think there is. I think beef’s great, but I’m glad the high streets aren’t filled with endless Angus Steak Houses. There’s an additional, perhaps subconscious, satisfaction to be gained from knowing there are other things on offer, even if you choose not to take them. The essence of the rest of the selection rubs off on you anyway.

At the museum, disappointed, the children ran gleefully around the stuffed animals section and gawped at the sheer immensity of a big blue whale. Now, there was substance; the real thing, a mammal deciding to show you how big it is by just being there. It was pretty successfully doing it’s job of being a blue whale, in much the same way that political and media animals could do theirs by just being themselves.

Julie Burchill returns next week