[b]Joseph Heller
You’ve got to have a God. Without God, you might turn to something really crazy, like witchcraft, or religion.[/b]
Or, sure, philosophy.
Like all the other officers at Group Headquarters except Major Danby, Colonel Cathcart was infused with the democratic spirit: he believed that all men were created equal, and he therefore spurned all men outside Group Headquarters with equal fervor.
As well he should.
Help him!
Help who?
Help the bombardier!
I’m a bombardier.
Help him, help him!
Help who?
On the other hand, are we obligated morally to help him?
You’ve got flies in your eyes. That’s why you can’t see them.
Still, better flies than bees. Or mosquitos.
And he knew something else as a social evolutionist that he might stress someday in his ‘Every Change Is for the Worse’ should he ever find time to write it: Gold knew that the most advanced and penultimate stage of a civilization was attained when chaos masqueraded as order, and he knew we were already there.
We’re way past there of course. Here order masquerades as chaos. Only theirs and not ours.
It’s the moment in which Yossarian, who has been in thrall to Catch-22 throughout, finally breaks away. Yossarian has come to realise that Catch-22 does not actually exist, but because the powers that be claim it does, and the world believes it does, it nevertheless has potent effects. Indeed, because it does not exist, there is no way it can be repealed. But here, finally, he can become free.
Let’s nail down how this works in Trumpworld.