You should really watch the video because it's amazing, but the tl;dw is that WWE is a live-filmed TV show with stunts about an over-the-top wrestling league. The world in the league has magic and wizards and all sorts of outlandish fictional elements, but the show we're watching is a sort of meta-show about that world.
With that in mind, politics is taking on a lot of the characteristics of wrestling in that it's this meta show about itself that doesn't really resemble the underlying truth. The big difference though is that the underlying truth in politics is the real-life workings of government, not a magical world of wizards, undead, and feats of strength.
With regards to papering over reality in favor of a preferable narrative–an activity as old as recorded history–I think wrestling actually has a much more honest relationship with fiction and truth than most things.
>Parsing both those layers — the behavior and the meta-behavior, the story told and the story of why it’s being told that way
This is a fairly major way of partitioning literary analysis. I've seen it called "Watsonian" vs "Doyleist" - you can either take a look at the narrative elements in the story, or at the circumstances facing the author.
Does anyone else yearn for life with what man has long called "wrestling"?
Our ancestors used to cultivate their might, overcome deep physical challenge, and express useful skills in sanctified circles.
Wrestling used to mean something profoundly real to human-kind, as it still does for many cultures who haven't taken a plunge into a commercial modernity.
I remember when I was young reading of loud gasps when `Okonkwo threw the Cat` in Things Fall Apart [0], one story's scene that resonates across distant lands, around familiar campfires, and within men's bones.
Among my friends at least Brazilian Jiu Jitsu has caught on big time. I tried a couple classes. While I enjoyed the workout, I had a feeling that if I did it regularly I would constantly be nursing an injury of one kind or another.
Would you feel better about basically that with no striking or submissions? Those seem like what separates martial arts from sports.
Among well-developed, modern wrestling styles, I also like how Folkstyle (called scholastic and collegiate[0]) doesn't reward for big throws, which have big risks, so it has a honed focus on skillful control (without violence).
0: for very good matches, search "NCAA Wrestling Finals"
Not wrestling specifically, but you certainly wouldn't be the first to feel a sort of alienation from... I don't know: call it physicality. There's a general sort of malaise you can see present in the US at least, it's why (or possibly because of) we see so much shit marketed to us via faux authenticity. Maybe it's just a perspective thing but I really think theirs a growing number of people developing a kind of knee jerk agrarian-utiopianist streak. I don't know what to recommend as far as further reading but it's certainly a concept that has been explored.
> Not wrestling specifically, but you certainly wouldn't be the first to feel a sort of alienation from... I don't know: call it physicality. There's a general sort of malaise you can see present in the US at least, it's why (or possibly because of) we see so much shit marketed to us via faux authenticity.
I used to wonder why people would talk about running in language reminiscent of religion and addiction, until I started feeling the malaise you're describing strongly enough. Unrelatedly, I left my job around the same time (this was about a year ago) and lost the use of their onsite gyms, and started running for the first time since college.
Something was different between my college runs and these newer runs. In college I would bang out 2 or 3 somewhat tedious miles and come home feeling nothing more than satisfied that I had done my required amount of physical activity. I'm not 18 anymore so I've had to be careful about stretching and warming up, but with these new runs, I was up to ten miles within a week and a half. "Getting exercise because it's healthy" is almost incidental to the reason I run now, which has a lot more to do with the feeling of pushing myself as hard and as long as you can.
It's a pretty potent antidote to the general feeling of malaise; it seems that something hardwired pretty deeply in us considers difficult physical activity as worthwhile in and of itself. I'm sure there's more to it (the agrarian-utopianist/yearning for authentic experiences that you're describing), but hard physical activity alone gets you some of the way there, in the same way that you can access some of the surface benefits of meditation without delving into all of its traditional philosophical baggage.
This is real - the agrarian-utopianist streak - but it's very sad. There is a middle course. Just unplug some and you'll be fine. If the TV has to be on, put it on CSPAN or something.
It's not reading (I'm verging on post-literacy myself ) , but one of the Adam Curtis films* has a treatise about an agrarian-utopian communes late '60s. And of course it fell apart.
*"All Watched Over", I think.
I recommend some measure of Dionysian ... exercise - just don't hurt yourself. I have a few beers and play honky tonk music in actual honky tonks ( and somebody else is driving ) . The beers are optional, so I can drive myself, but it's a little less great that way.
In a Louis CK "Everything is amazing and nobody is happy" way.
Because in a non-agrarian-utopian way, we've managed to eliminate food insecurity. I think completely. If we could actually move it all around properly, nobody need starve.
People starve because food is ... inconveniently located.
So I am an Okie. I got an orange every year in my Christmas stocking. Okay, so it's an orange. Only years later did it dawn on me - people didn't have oranges. My parents didn't have oranges. In my lifetime ( or perhaps theirs; don't get too detailed on me ) , this happened.
The sheer mass of human activity behind that symbol is .. terrifying. Throwing it away... I don't know how that works.
My uncles, granduncles all farmed. It like to killed 'em. Now, it's just ... button pushing.
We have no idea what we came from and what is at stake. And that is what makes me sad.
> Not wrestling specifically, but you certainly wouldn't be the first to feel a sort of alienation from... I don't know: call it physicality
We've been moving past this "physicality" for at least the last 3,000 years, it's what makes us, well, rational and modern humans. Case in point, the mighty Achilles and Hector both die, while the non-physical Ulysses finally manages to return home to his beloved Penelope. Also see Goliath vs David.
Why not ? It's arguably the most basic of human athletic endeavors (besides walking and running), it's extremely beneficial to your health (nothing exercises every single little muscle in your body - but wrestling does) and depending on where you set your output dial, it's as high output of a sport as is possible.
Further, the popularity of BJJ opens up a lot of venues and increased interest - male and female - all over the country.
Oh no, I just meant that I think that sort of deep longing/suadade for some sort of physical (competitive or not)... something, while not often expressed as a desire for wrestling, seems fairly common in the general population. That's "not wrestling specifically" as in "not limited to just wrestling".
...or you could just, like, engage in some physical activity. Wrestling is fun, but if you're not still in school and your group of friends doesn't include some adventurous people roughly your size it might be hard to get started. Alternatively, you could just go to a party at which everybody gets really hammered, and suggest wrestling at the right time. Don't be a dick and get pissed off, though.
Try strength training. I.e lifting weights not for aesthetic reasons but to get stronger and lift heavier weights. I stayed it and loved it. It really is like levelling up your life and having a secret super power.
I do strength training more as a way to exert a somewhat healthy form of control over my body which helps tremendously with my nigh-crippling self esteem/body issues (therapy might help too but $35 at a gym is much cheaper).
> Does anyone else yearn for life with what man has long called "wrestling"?
Maybe I'm mis-interpreting you, but isn't that one of the reasons Fight-Club resonated so well with people? Sure, it's story is deeper than "a bunch of guys get together for a friendly fighting session", but that was a big part of the draw behind it.
No, I don't yearn for that at all. This sounds like "Fight Club". "Fight Club" is, I think, a reductio-ring plot - it disproves its original premise ( through contradiction ) and ends up where it started ( is a ring ) .
So, no.
Our ancestors had no choice but to embrace harsh physical challenge. We ain't gotta do that no more. I have ancestors I have met who were like that. They weren't romantic about it. If anything, they were a bit embarrassed by it.
I agree. It seems like a lot of people are profoundly unable to be physically uncomfortable. It's disheartening to think about people who are so scared of sweating or having achey muscles that they'll avoid any experience that requires physical exertion.
There's no anger here, only frustration over a society that normalizes permanent childhood. Adult crying over trivialities - or worse, Bernays-style manipulation - is symptomatic of an inability to manage one's emotions. The defining characteristic of transition from childhood is cognitive mastery over emotional whim.
“Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” --C.S. Lewis
Crying is a normal part of healthy adulthood. Not bawling your eyes out screaming like a toddler crying, but shedding a tear or a few during an emotional moment. The defining characteristic of modern society is how it shames you for betraying your authentic feelings.
> The defining characteristic of transition from childhood is cognitive mastery over emotional whim.
Just because adults CAN suppress almost all emotional reactions doesn't mean that we should. Believing that certain emotional reactions should never be expressed, or that expressing them over 'trivialities' is bad, sounds like a very immature view of adulthood in my opinion. Shedding a tear when you are confronted with an image you find beautiful or poignant seems is one of the greatest things about being human. I'm only engaging in this conversation because engaging with my emotions rather than stifling them has been one of the most rewarding challenges of my life and required analyzinh a lot of my own programming. You have no idea what you're missing if you don't try.
Surely learning to feel your own life and limb would foster insight and self-control.
And if that holds true, then this one-way media about physical expression, choreographed to maximize drama, surely causes imbalances to healthy and fruitful relief from bottling emotions.
At the very least, we can expect every future presidential candidate to have appeared on a reality show at some point. "News" organizations seek ratings. Nothing delivers ratings like the frisson of seeing that same person who did that silly thing on that show, now doing some other silly thing to piss off the nerds on CNN!
Waaaay back in 1992, when Jay Leno was taking over for Johnny Carson, I saw an interview with him in which they asked him about having politicians on the Tonight Show. He said he didn't want to have them on unless they did something unusual "like play a saxophone or something silly like that."
Literally just a few months later then-candidate Bill Clinton appeared on Arsenio Hall and played the saxophone.
With recent events indicate strong links between the lords of professional wrestling and those of Silicon Valley, I have to give more credence to the idea than I would like.
You should really watch the video because it's amazing, but the tl;dw is that WWE is a live-filmed TV show with stunts about an over-the-top wrestling league. The world in the league has magic and wizards and all sorts of outlandish fictional elements, but the show we're watching is a sort of meta-show about that world.
With that in mind, politics is taking on a lot of the characteristics of wrestling in that it's this meta show about itself that doesn't really resemble the underlying truth. The big difference though is that the underlying truth in politics is the real-life workings of government, not a magical world of wizards, undead, and feats of strength.
With regards to papering over reality in favor of a preferable narrative–an activity as old as recorded history–I think wrestling actually has a much more honest relationship with fiction and truth than most things.