Catch-22 (logic)

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 creating 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.

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.

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.

[3] In a final episode, Catch-22 is described to Yossarian by an old woman recounting an act of violence by soldiers:[4][5] "Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can't stop them from doing."

"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.

[6] Besides referring to an unsolvable logical dilemma, Catch-22 is invoked to explain or justify the military bureaucracy.

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.

In chapter 40, Catch-22 forces Colonels Korn and Cathcart to promote Yossarian to Major and ground him rather than simply sending him home.

Heller originally wanted to call the phrase (and hence, the book) by other numbers, but he and his publishers eventually settled on 22.

[8] 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 of the rules of high school and colleges that: 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.

[5]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.

Circuit Judge Don Willett referred to qualified immunity, which requires a violation of constitutional rights to have been previously established in order for a victim to claim damages, as a catch-22: "Section 1983 meets Catch-22.

"[12][13] The archetypal catch-22, as formulated by Joseph Heller, involves the case of John Yossarian, a U.S. Army Air Forces bombardier, who wishes to be grounded from combat flight.

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.