Catch-22
For the students of media studies of SBBU
A dilemma or difficult
circumstance from which there is no escape because of mutually conflicting or
dependent conditions.
A catch-22 is a paradoxical situation from which an individual
cannot escape because of contradictory rules. The term was coined by Joseph Heller,
who used it in his 1961 novel Catch-22.
An example would
be:
"How am I
supposed to gain experience [to be hired for a job] if I'm constantly turned
down for not having any?"[3]
Catch-22s often
result from rules, regulations, or procedures that an individual is subject to
but has no control over because to fight the rule is to accept it. Another
example is a situation in which someone is in need of something that can only
be had by not being in need of it. (A bank will never issue someone a loan if
they need the money.) One connotation of the term
is that the creators of the "catch-22" situation have created
arbitrary rules in order to justify and conceal their own abuse of power.
Joseph Heller coined
the term in his 1961 novel Catch-22, which describes absurd bureaucratic
constraints on soldiers in World War II. The term is introduced by the character
Doc Daneeka, an army psychiatrist who invokes "Catch 22" to explain
why any pilot requesting mental evaluation for insanity—hoping to be found not
sane enough to fly and thereby escape dangerous missions—demonstrates his own
sanity in making the request and thus cannot be declared insane. This phrase
also means a dilemma or difficult circumstance from which there is no escape
because of mutually conflicting or dependent conditions.[4]
"You mean there's a catch?"
"Sure there's a catch," Doc Daneeka replied.
"Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really
crazy."
There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified
that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and
immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was
crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did,
he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be
crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane, he had to
fly them. If he flew them, he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't
want to, he was sane and had to. Yossarian was
moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let
out a respectful whistle.
Different
formulations of "Catch-22" appear throughout the novel. The term is
applied to various loopholes and quirks of the military system, always with the
implication that rules are inaccessible to and slanted against those lower in
the hierarchy. In chapter 6, Yossarian is told that Catch-22 requires him to do
anything his commanding officer tells him to do, regardless of whether
these orders contradict orders from the officer's superiors.
In a final
episode, Catch-22 is described to Yossarian by an old woman recounting an act
of violence by soldiers:
"Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can't
stop them from doing."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Yossarian
shouted at her in bewildered, furious protest. "How did you know it was
Catch-22? Who the hell told you it was Catch-22?"
"The soldiers with the hard white hats and clubs. The girls
were crying. 'Did we do anything wrong?' they said. The men said no and pushed
them away out the door with the ends of their clubs. 'Then why are you chasing
us out?' the girls said. 'Catch 22,' the men said. All they kept saying was
'Catch-22, Catch-22. What does it mean, Catch 22? What is Catch-22?"
"Didn't they show it to you?" Yossarian demanded,
stamping about in anger and distress. "Didn't you even make them read
it?"
"They don't have to show us Catch-22," the old woman
answered. "The law says they don't have to."
"What law says they don't have to?"
"Catch-22."
According to
literature professor Ian Gregson, the old woman's narrative defines
"Catch-22" more directly as the "brutal operation of
power", stripping away the "bogus sophistication" of the earlier
scenarios.
Other appearances in the novel
Besides
referring to an unsolvable logical dilemma, Catch-22 is invoked to explain or justify
the military bureaucracy. For example, in the first chapter, it requires
Yossarian to sign his name to letters that he censors while he is confined to a
hospital bed. One clause mentioned in chapter 10 closes a loophole in
promotions, which one private had been exploiting to reattain the attractive
rank of Private First Class after any promotion. Through courts-martial for
going AWOL,
he would be busted in rank back to private, but Catch-22 limited the number of
times he could do this before being sent to the stockade.
At another point
in the book, a prostitute explains to Yossarian that she cannot marry him
because he is crazy, and she will never marry a crazy man. She considers any
man crazy who would marry a woman who is not a virgin. This closed logic loop
clearly illustrated Catch-22 because by her logic, all men who refuse to marry
her are sane and thus she would consider marriage; but as soon as a man agrees
to marry her, he becomes crazy for wanting to marry a non-virgin, and is
instantly rejected.
At one point,
Captain Black attempts to press Milo into depriving Major Major of food as a consequence of not
signing a loyalty oath that Major Major was never given an opportunity to sign
in the first place. Captain Black asks Milo, "You're not against Catch-22,
are you?"
In chapter 40,
Catch-22 forces Colonels Korn and Cathcart to promote Yossarian to Major and
ground him rather than simply sending him home. They fear that if they do not,
others will refuse to fly, just as Yossarian did.
Significance of the number]
Main
articles: Catch-22 § Explanation of the
novel's title, and Catch-22
Heller
originally wanted to call the phrase (and hence, the book) by other numbers,
but he and his publishers eventually settled on 22. The number has no
particular significance; it was chosen more or less for euphony. The title was originally Catch-18, but Heller changed it
after the popular Mila 18 was
published a short time beforehand.[9][10]
Usage[edit]
The term
"catch-22" has filtered into common usage in the English language.[2] In
a 1975 interview, Heller said the term would not translate well into other
languages.[10]
James E. Combs
and Dan D. Nimmo suggest that the idea of a "catch-22" has gained
popular currency because so many people in modern society are exposed to
frustrating bureaucratic logic. They write:
Everyone, then, who deals with organizations understands the
bureaucratic logic of Catch-22. In high school or college, for example,
students can participate in student government, a form of self-government and
democracy that allows them to decide whatever they want, just so long as the
principal or dean of students approves. This bogus democracy that can be
overruled by arbitrary fiat is perhaps a citizen's first encounter with
organizations that may profess 'open' and libertarian values, but in fact are
closed and hierarchical systems. Catch-22 is an organizational assumption, an
unwritten law of informal power that exempts the organization from
responsibility and accountability, and puts the individual in the absurd
position of being excepted for the convenience or unknown purposes of the
organization.[7]
Along with
George Orwell's "doublethink",
"Catch-22" has become one of the best-recognized ways to describe the
predicament of being trapped by contradictory rules.[11]
A significant
type of definition of alternative medicine has been termed a catch-22. In a 1998
editorial co-authored by Marcia Angell, a former editor of the New
England Journal of Medicine, argued that:
"It is time for the scientific community to stop giving
alternative medicine a free ride. There cannot be two kinds of medicine –
conventional and alternative. There is only medicine that has been adequately
tested and medicine that has not, medicine that works and medicine that may or
may not work. Once a treatment has been tested rigorously, it no longer matters
whether it was considered alternative at the outset. If it is found to be
reasonably safe and effective, it will be accepted. But assertions, speculation,
and testimonials do not substitute for evidence. Alternative treatments should
be subjected to scientific testing no less rigorous than that required for
conventional treatments."[12]
This definition
has been described by Robert L. Park as
a logical catch-22 which ensures that any CAM method which is proven to work
"would no longer be CAM, it would simply be medicine."[13]
Logic[edit]
The archetypal catch-22,
as formulated by Heller, involves the case of John Yossarian, a U.S. Army Air Forces bombardier, who
wishes to be grounded from combat flight. This will only happen if he is
evaluated by the squadron's flight surgeon and
found "unfit to fly". "Unfit" would be any pilot who is
willing to fly such dangerous missions, as one would have to be mad to
volunteer for possible death. However, to be evaluated, he must request the evaluation, an act that is
considered sufficient proof for being declared sane. These conditions make it
impossible to be declared "unfit".
The
"Catch-22" is that "anyone who wants to get out of combat duty
isn't really crazy".[14] Hence,
pilots who request a mental fitness evaluation are sane, and therefore must fly in
combat. At the same time, if an evaluation is not requested by the pilot, he
will never receive one and thus can never be found insane, meaning he must also
fly in combat.
Therefore,
Catch-22 ensures that no pilot can ever be grounded for being insane even if he
is.
A logical
formulation of this situation is:
1.
|
For a person to be
excused from flying (E) on the grounds of insanity, they must both be insane
(I) and have requested an evaluation (R).
|
(premise)
|
|
2.
|
An insane person (I)
does not request an evaluation (¬R) because they do not realize they are
insane.
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(premise)
|
|
3.
|
Every person is either
not insane (¬I) or does not request an evaluation (¬R).
|
||
4.
|
No person can be both
insane (I) and request an evaluation (R).
|
(3. and De Morgan's laws)
|
|
5.
|
Therefore, no person can
be excused from flying (¬E) because no person can be both insane and have
requested an evaluation.
|
(4., 1. and modus tollens)
|
The philosopher Laurence Goldstein argues
that the "airman's dilemma" is logically not even a condition that is
true under no circumstances; it is a "vacuous biconditional" that is
ultimately meaningless. Goldstein writes:[15]
The catch is this: what looks like a statement of the conditions
under which an airman can be excused flying dangerous missions reduces not to
the statement
(i) `An airman can be
excused flying dangerous missions if and only if Cont’ (where `Cont’ is a
contradiction)
(which could be a mean way of disguising an unpleasant truth),
but to the worthlessly empty announcement
(ii) `An airman can
be excused flying dangerous missions if and only if it is not the case that an
airman can be excused flying dangerous missions’
If the catch were (i), that would not be so bad – an airman
would at least be able to discover that under no circumstances could he avoid
combat duty. But Catch-22 is worse – a welter of words that amounts to nothing;
it is without content, it conveys no information at all.
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