Catch 22 meaning
A catch-22 is a paradoxical circumstance from which a person is unable to escape due to competing laws or restrictions. In his 1961 book Catch-22, Joseph Heller introduced the phrase for the first time. Brantley Foster from The Secret of My Success offers this as an illustration: "How can I obtain any experience unless I have a job that gives me experience?"
Rules, regulations, or procedures that an individual must abide by but has no control over frequently create catch-22 situations because to challenge the rule is to submit to it. Another illustration is a circumstance in which someone needs something that can only be obtained by not needing it (e.g.: the only way to qualify for a loan is to prove to the bank that you do not need a loan). One meaning of the phrase is that those who created the "catch-22" situation made arbitrary rules to cover up and defend their own abuse of authority.
The phrase was first used by Joseph Heller in his 1961 book Catch-22, which exposes the ludicrous bureaucratic restrictions placed on soldiers during World War II. The phrase is first used by the character Doc Daneeka, an army psychiatrist who uses the "Catch-22" to explain why any pilot requesting a mental evaluation for insanity—hoping to be found not sane enough to fly and thereby escape risky missions—demonstrates his own sanity in making the request and therefore cannot be declared insane. This expression can also refer to a predicament or challenging situation from which there is no way out due to conditions that are mutually exclusive or dependent.
The phrase "Catch-22" is used to describe an impasse in reasoning as well as to explain or defend the military bureaucracy. For instance, Yossarian is required to sign letters in the first chapter that he edits while confined to a hospital bed. A provision in chapter 10 removes a promotion loophole that one private had been using to maintain the desirable rank of private first class after any promotion. He would be demoted to private through courts-martial for being AWOL, but Catch-22 restricted the amount of times he could do this before being transported to the stockade.
