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. Joseph Heller coined the term in his 1961 novel Catch-22, which describes absurd bureaucratic constraints on soldiers in World War II. 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. the only way to qualify for a loan is to prove to the bank that you do not need a loan). 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 (e.g. The term was coined by Joseph Heller, who used it in his 1961 novel Catch-22.Ĭatch-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. A flowchart showing Joseph Heller's original Catch-22Ī catch-22 is a paradoxical situation from which an individual cannot escape because of contradictory rules or limitations.
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