Catch 22 door Joseph Heller

Prologue

Because Joseph Heller uses extremes in his novel I chose a thesis which would show the extremes of old times (ancient Greece) and modern time (Relating the novel to philosophy)

Thesis

Humanity and rationality in war changes a human into an animal, or a mad man into a hero.

To work this thesis out we have to think of humans and animals to be different, looking at the thesis from the point of view Aristotle had. The human differs itself by having a ratio, rationalism, the power to apply reason on situations and handle these situations logically. In order to do this I will first give examples of how Yossarian comes up with his choices and what influences these have. I will also tell about situations in the book that can be reflected upon modern day life.

In Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 Yossarian faces many problems which may seem to be coming from a mad man, but have a wealth of logic behind them. He is a Captain that fights for his country, but his opinion changes over time. At a certain point in time we see that he has a very different reason for flying his missions.

"He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt, and his only mission each time he went up was to come down alive."

After a certain amount of missions one should be sent home. Yossarian kept reaching this total, but every time he got close, Colonel Cathcart would raise the number of missions you needed to go back home. The only reason the Colonel does this is because he wants his group to be the one that flew the most missions during the war.

"’Fifty missions,’ Doc Daneeka told him, shaking his head. ‘The colonel wants fifty missions.’

‘But I’ve only got forty-four!’

To keep the men in the war the higher officials came up with a catch, catch-22.

This is an irrational dilemma in which no real choice exists. The catch-22 is a situation that shows the failure of bureaucracy. A small example is the American drug law, which banned medical cannabis because according to them its therapeutic benefit is insufficient, but scientists can’t research this area anymore, so new medication based on cannabis faces the same policies.

"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."[Zacht einde]"That's some catch, that catch-22," he observed.[Zacht einde]"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.

Another catch-22 like situation is displayed further into the story, where Yossarian wants to marry a girl named Luciana, but she won’t let him.

Yossarian saw how important survival is, more important than patriotism. Only because he saw Snowden die, he tried to rescue him but his efforts were in vain. He learns that he must not trust upon his body, but his mind will be the one that will keep him alive. At this point he loses hope in the war, and just wants to get out. Without a soul, you are nothing. I can see the wisdom of old philosophers in Yossarian. To know that you are nothing, that is wisdom; those that think that they are wise are fools.

"Man was matter, that was Snowden's secret. Drop him out a window and he'll fall. Set fire to him and he'll burn. Bury him and he'll rot, like other kinds of garbage. The spirit gone, man is garbage."

To talk about this subject we have to know what rationality is, which is to exercise reason. We see that during war unknown people try to kill you, and you try to kill unknown people. This is considered logic. Reverse logic is often used to gain the upper hand in a conversation (ex. Yossarian and Mrs. Scheisskopf about every one thing having two disadvantages).

Yossarian is displayed like a person that has no interest in anything, and often people think he is a mad man. The only things that might catch his interest are women and his battle for survival. After reading the book one can say he is not a mad man, since the things he does end up keeping him alive. One could say that Yossarian does not improve during the story, but actually he does. He treats women as lust objects. In the end he shows care and goes back to the big city to take care of Nately’s whore’s kid sister. This is not because of guilt, but because of compassion. In the beginning of the novel Yossarian was trying to beat the system by spending the war in the hospital, but by the end of the novel Yossarian does not want to beat the system. Since if he beats the system, another person will have to take his place. If another person takes his place the system continues, if he deserts, he has nothing to do with the system, so he avoids it. By doing this one could say Yossarian is emerging as a hero, since he is not responsible anymore for the flaws in the system. One might say that he is a coward since he ran away, but he would have been killed if he had not deserted. The main point is that he does no longer want to be part of the system that sends young men towards their doom.

"I'm not running away from my responsibilities.  I'm running to them"

-

"The knife came down, missing him by inches, and he took off."

Milo Minderbinder is lieutenant and the mess officer on the base in Pianosa. In the novel he presents a satire of a modern day businessman and he represents capitalism. Milo makes profit buying eggs for 7 cents a piece and selling them for 5 cents a piece.

"But I make a profit of three and a quarter cents an egg by selling them for four and a quarter cents an egg to the people in Malta I buy them from for seven cents an egg. Of course, I don't make the profit. The syndicate makes the profit. And everybody has a share."

He uses manipulation and corrupts ideals to reach his goals. The only thing he is interested in is money, this shows a narrow view. One could say he still uses his ratio, his reason to make deals and grow his syndicate into a blooming organisation of which everybody owns a part. All though he gets great business deals he has no sense in what is wrong or what is right, he does not care about human lives, only about profit. He signed a contract which stated that he would have to buy all of the Egyptian cotton crops; this was a wrong move to make. After he figures out there is no market for this he finally signs a contract with the Germans, after which he bombs his own camp. Using your sense of reason is something that humans do, and Milo obviously does not. Reason would imply that profit over human lives is wrong, but the majority of people are blinded by the amount of cash made. According to the philosophy of Aristotle, at this point, Milo would be an animal. This is because his observations are not thought over; he does things without thinking about the consequences in a humane way.

"This time Milo had gone too far. Bombing his own men and planes was more than even the most phlegmatic observer could stomach, and it looked like the end for him...Milo was all washed up until he opened his books to the public and disclosed the tremendous profit he had made."

To complete the philosophy of Aristotle we still need to relate someone to the vegetative soul. This would in term mean that this person is a plant. To be a plant means you have no ratio, you do not think about your decisions and you do not observe anything. Only thing you care about is to reproduce, to eat and to grow. My choise of this person is Aarfy, he only cares about these things. Since his only objective is to befriend Nately, and to get a good job through Nately’s father. This may be seen as growth. A good job means money, which in term means reproductive chances (he would attract women). If he has enough money, he does not have to worry about not being able to eat. Aarfy shows no reason, since rather than paying a prostitute, he rapes and murders a maid. He is heedless about everything and does not recognize danger when he sees it.

“He got lost on the mission to Ferrera the day Kraft was shot down and killed, and he got lost again on the weekly milk run to parma and tried to lead the planes out to sea over the city of Leghorn after Yossarian had dropped his bombs on the undefended inland target and settled back against his thick wall of armor plate with his eyes closed and a fragrant cigarette in his finger tips .Suddenly there was flak, and all at once McWatt was shrieking over the intercom, ‘Flak! Flak! Where the hell are we? What the hell’s going on?’ ”
According to me the thesis is correct, if you would connect the book to the ancient wisdom of the philosophers. If these situations arise in real life you could probably state the same thing. This is because these persons actually show change over time, in both positive and negative ways.