What pro wrestling can teach us about the quest for truth

The elaborate pantomime of pro wrestling sheds light on the psychology of truth-seeking. "We all know that pro wrestling is not a sport in the sense that boxing is. Pro wrestling presents as a genuine struggle between wrestlers for victory, but it does so with a complicit nod to the audience: we realise that what we're seeing is people playing characters and working together put on a show. As Barthes puts it, this show is often a spectacle about suffering, defeat and justice — or, more brightly, it tells stories of virtue and vice, heroism and villainy." Philosopher Douglas Edwards contemplates in Psyche magazine.