PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

      In the book Catch 22, Joseph Heller tells a story of an officer who suddenly realizes that the idea of war is insane.  Decent people who could be working to make the world a better place devote their existences to killing people born on the other side of some imaginary line and destroying everything those people have built.  Wars have been going on for all of history and have never improved the basic realities of human existence, nor do they appear to hold any promise of doing so in the future. 

            The officer, Captain Yossarian, hadn’t realized this before.  This made him doubly insane; once because he participated in the events, and the second time because he hadn’t even realized it was insane to do this.  In the book, Yossarian went to his doctor and pointed out that, under Section 8 of United States military regulations, insane people can’t serve and have to be discharged.  (We certainly don’t want insane people with control over decisions about mass murder!)   His entire unit had participated in the act and Yossarian told the doctor that this was evidence they were all ineligible for service and had to go home, to live with their families, never being forced to kill anyone again for the rest of their lives. 

            The doctor pointed out that at least one member of the unit, Yossarian himself, was clearly not insane because he realized how crazy war was.  Yossarian would not get a discharge.  The rest of the people in his unit were clearly insane and not eligible to serve.  As soon as any of them filed the necessary forms, they would be discharged.  Unfortunately, there is a catch, which the doctor calls ‘Catch 22:’  If they fill out the forms asking for the discharges, they are showing that they realize how insane war is and proving themselves sane.  This meant that any who filled out the forms wouldn’t qualify and wouldn’t be discharged.  Only those who didn’t fill out the form qualified and they merely had to fill out the forms to be released.

            Catch 22 meant that the government could have its cake and eat it too:  It could assure the people that war was totally sane and all people fighting it were sane (insane people weren’t even eligible to serve!) while at the same time carry on with the clear insanity of devoting resources to mass murder, destruction, and the creation of endless terror for untold numbers of people.