What is Catch-22

Examining the paradox of Catch-22 in the novel

1. What is a Catch-22
•catch-22
•noun
•a dilemma or difficult circumstance from which
there is no escape because of mutually
conflicting or dependent conditions.

2. A Catch-22 is
•a paradoxical situation from which an individual
cannot escape because of contradictory rules.
[1][2]
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. One connotation of the term is
that the creators of the "catch-22" have created
arbitrary rules in order to justify and conceal their
own abuse of power.

3. •"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.

4. •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.
[4]
•In a final episode, Catch-22 is described to
Yossarian by an old woman recounting an act of
violence by soldiers:
[5][6]

5. •"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".

6. Motif
•Unsolvable logical dilemma
•Brutal operation of power
•Explain or justify anything

7. •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 excepts 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.
[6]
•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.
[10]

8. Double Think
• is the act of ordinary people simultaneously
accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as
correct, often in distinct social contexts

9. •To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness
while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two
opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and
believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate
morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was
impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to
forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into
memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then
promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process
to the process itself – that was the ultimate subtlety; consciously to
induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become
unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to
understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink.
[3]

10. •The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind
simultaneously, and accepting both of them... To tell
deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any
fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes
necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just as long
as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all
the while to take account of the reality which one denies – all
this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word
doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by
using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality;
by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and
so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the
truth.
[3]