My favorite essays feel like surprising chemical reactions: Their materials combine into something novel and combustible. The French philosopher Roland Barthes's 1957 essay 'The World of Wrestling,' which examines the 'amplification of the tragic masks' in professional (fake) grappling, certainly fits this category. So does an article in The Atlantic this week, in which the staff writer Gal Beckerman invokes Barthes' essay to explain the symbolic importance of UFC 250, the gaudy display of blood sport that Donald Trump staged in front of the White House on Sunday. As Beckerman's editor, I love the way he explains the news through the writings of philosophers, making an implicit case that they are less arcane'and more relevant'than some readers might think. So I decided to ask him to recommend a few more thinkers who might shed some light on the baffling era we're living through. Gal Beckerman: Yes. Philosophers, even those who produce some fairly dense theory, have asked the kinds...
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