Category: Dignity

Catch-22: A Masterpiece by Joseph Heller

WARNING! This post is an analysis and celebration of Joseph Heller’s novel, Catch-22, and it DOES contain PLOT SPOILERS. If you wish to read the novel for the first time, do not read this post.

“Give the first twelve chapters a chance” has long been my advice to anyone who asks about Catch-22, Joseph Heller’s modernist masterpiece that critiques the absurdity of the military during wartime. If you haven’t read the book, I will hardly spoil things by explaining how eagerly we witless first-timers set out to read such a lauded modern classic, only to be confronted by what might be the most frustrating paragon of show-versus-tell in existence. (However, I will be discussing spoiler details from here on, so be warned.) From the seemingly disparate chapter titles to the disjointed narrative, which repeatedly folds back upon itself, from a maddeningly mirthful plot device, which tempts you to toss the book aside and deny its existence, to an irresolute closing – if you make it that far – the book continually challenges readers to deduce what’s happening and piece together what’s happened. Toss in what seems like an endless cadre of characters, ranging from odder to oddest to perhaps not so odd, the book is a challenge, no question.

For seven years, I assigned this book as summer reading for returning seniors. Oh, how the students complained about those twelve chapters – excessive! pointless! irritating! – only to feel more aggrieved at hearing, “Exactly,” my necessary reply. Once the venting subsided – usually at least half the first lesson – we’d begin discussing why Heller’s book could only be written this way as compared to some more conventional, accessible way.

For one thing, we need to meet the protagonist, Yossarian, and understand his circumstances so that, at appropriate upcoming times, which of course will have already occurred, we won’t criticise but will instead favour him. To this end, the entire story is told out-of-sequence, opening apparently in media res during Yossarian’s hospital stay. We have character introductions and letter censoring, foreshadowing how words and language will be manipulated while characters will be isolated, alienated, and demeaned. Subsequently, we learn the logic of Catch-22 from Doc Daneeka. And that Snowden dies. If we’ve navigated the twelve opening chapters and lived to tell about it, we learn that Yossarian, originally a young, excited airman, once needed two passes over a target in order to bomb it successfully, which gets his crewmember, Kraft, killed. Yossarian is further distressed upon returning when he receives a medal for the mission. Meanwhile, Milo opens his syndicate. The tension of tedium, the injustice of fortune. The folly of command, the depravity of humankind. Capping the story is the gruesome account of Snowden’s death, the key incident that incites Yossarian’s fear and lands him in hospital, where we first meet him – naturally, Heller waits until the end to tell us the beginning.

Heller writes with an absurd, illogical narrative style that characterises Yossarian’s internal eternal predicament, wending its way through isolation, alienation, discord, misery, paranoia, fear, senselessness, deception, vice, cruelty, even rape and murder. Catch-22 being what it is, its victims have zero-chance to overcome because the antagonists are permitted to do whatever the protagonists are unable to prevent. All along the way, Heller has Yossarian wanting out of the military (fly no missions = live), and he continually ups the ante between Yossarian and all the disturbing confrontations and contradictions that antagonise him, from his enemies and his commanders to his acquaintances and his comrades. But ultimately, and most potently, he has Yossarian suffering from his own self-interest. As the narrative flits and tumbles about, in its own progressive way, Yossarian’s self-interest evolves or, better to say, devolves. What does evolve, inversely to self-interest, is his compassion as he gradually grows more concerned for the men in his squadron, and which by Chapter 40, “Catch-22,” has extended to all innocent people beset by oppression, prejudice, and exploitation. So when Colonel Cathcart’s promised deal to send him home safely, definitely, comes ironically (fittingly!) at the expense of the squadron, Yossarian ultimately recovers enough self-reliance to overcome his personal anguish but not enough to remand himself to the cycle of absurdity. Given Heller’s dispersed timeline, describing Yossarian’s character development as a narrative arc or an evolution is less accurate than the piecing together of a jigsaw or the unveiling of a secret.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Yossarian’s instinct for self-preservation is the source of his personal torment. His despondency and disgust over the preponderance of all human self-interest finally turn Yossarian’s decision to go AWOL, at criminal risk but personal safety. That such a climax works is because readers – like Yossarian – are no longer fighting back but giving in, yet even then Heller offers no respite – the story ends ambiguously, leaving readers to satisfy their own vexation. Even so, I suspect that Heller appreciated John Chancellor’s life-imitating-art intiative as one inspired by more than a spirit of fandom. So where some characters have been subjects of compassion, others agents of absurdity, readers’ resultant responses have also undergone a perfectly natural evolution, mirroring Yossarian’s character development and culminating with his terrifying walk through Rome. The horrors of “The Eternal City,” in this light, are not only an essential but an inevitable piece in Heller’s plan.

Yossarian’s shall-we-say militant decision to desert is borne of Snowden’s ugly death during the Avignon mission, only a week after the death of Kraft and the award of Yossarian’s medal. Seeing Snowden’s innards spilling rudely from his body nauseates Yossarian and haunts him throughout the entire (or, from Yossarian’s perspective, for the rest of) the story. Yossarian, inset by Heller on behalf of soldiers as a protagonist, has no way of making things better. His futile effort at comfort, “There, there” (p. 166), is comically insincere for its honest helplessness, an understated shriek from all soldiers continually sent to face death – not death without context but without resonance. However, for Yossarian and his comrades, the context of sacrifice is all too irrationally clear: thanks very much. Catch-22. Soldiers face the dilemma of following orders that entirely devalue their very existence.

Participation as a soldier offends Yossarian to the core, yet it also helps him to reconcile his fear over death: “… man is matter,” finite, mortal and – without spirit – simply “garbage.” In fact, this sentence sums human worth as a blunt statement: “The spirit gone, man is garbage” (p. 440). Six words of sad, harsh consequence, war, no longer wearing a comic mask. The absolute phrase, a terse syntactical effect, annuls man’s significance – spirited briefly, gone abruptly, an empty corporeal body left over, garbage. Garbage is a harsh image – rotting flesh, buzzing flies, scum, residue, stench. Pessimism, cynicism, worthlessness. On such terms, one wonders whether anyone might willingly die to save themselves, as it were, another troubling revelation engineered by a masterpiece of unprosaic illogic. Yet even on this point, Heller’s genius is flawless. Haunting though it is, Snowden’s death gradually reveals to Yossarian the very path to life and safety that he has pursued ever since the opening chapter in the hospital – which is to say, ever since Snowden’s death drove him there in the first place.

This is why Heller refers to Snowden’s death, specifically his entrails, as a “secret” because to reveal it any earlier would be to end the novel. And he calls it Snowden’s “grim secret” to illustrate Yossarian’s suppressed mental anguish. Heller has Yossarian recall Snowden a number of times, each admitting more detail, each growing more vivid, each driving him a little closer to his final resolution. Heller’s portrayal of Yossarian’s traumatised memories in this way suggests the nightmarish flashbacks that people, particularly soldiers, endure following the horrors of war. His final flashback in Chapter 41, “Snowden”, is prompted when Yossarian wards off the mysterious stranger in – where else? – the hospital. It’s most revelatory for Yossarian – and readers, by extension – because, here at the end of his patchy, appalling flashbacks, he is finally secure enough to divine for himself – or is it to admit to us? – the grim secret found in Snowden’s entrails. In the same way, the climax is most revelatory for readers who – at the mercy of Heller’s dispersed narrative structure – have been made to wait until the closing, when the time is finally ripe.

To get there, we are dragged unwittingly by Heller down a path of frustrating sympathy, illogical absurdity, and agonising anticipation. By the time Yossarian is introduced (in the opening chapter!) censoring letters and conniving a way to escape the war, he is that much nearer to desertion than we can yet know. Certainly, Snowden will convince us to desert as surely as he convinces Yossarian, but that will happen later, after Heller has aggravated our tolerance and mottled our innocence. Heller must drag us down Yossarian’s agonising path, or else he places us at risk of passing premature judgment upon not merely his protagonist but his entire message. Finally, when the moment arrives that we gather full appreciation of Snowden’s death, we have all we need to share in the vindication of Yossarian’s desertion.

So here is our way to grasp the grim secret behind the novel’s dissembling structure as restlessly and imperturbably as Yossarian does: the root of conflict, Snowden’s death, can only occur at the end of Heller’s narrative path, not Yossarian’s. The story simply works no other way.

Teaching Open-Mindedly in the Post-Truth Era

[Updated June 09, 2018]

I had brilliant students, can’t say enough about them, won’t stop trying. I happened to be in touch with one alumna – as sharp a thinker as I’ve ever met, and a beautiful writer – in the wake of the U.S. election campaign last winter and wrote the following piece in response to a question she posed:

How do you teach open-mindedly in the post-truth era?

I was pleased that she asked, doubly so at having a challenging question to consider! And I thoroughly enjoyed the chance to compose a thoughtful reply. Not my own best writing, perhaps, but containing some insight, anyway.

I’ve revised things here a little, for a broader audience, but nothing of substance has changed.

How do you teach open-mindedly in the post-truth era?

Good heavens. Hmm… with respect for peoples’ dignity, is my most immediate response. But such a question.

Ultimately, it takes two because any kind of teaching is a relationship – better still, a rapport, listening and speaking in turn, and willingly. Listening, not just hearing. But if listening (and speaking) is interpreting, then bias is inescapable, and there needs to be continual back-and-forth efforts to clarify, motivated by incentives to want to understand: that means mutual trust and respect, and both sides openly committed. So one question I’d pose back to this question pertains to the motives and incentives for teaching (or learning) ‘X’ in the first place. Maybe this question needs a scenario, to really illustrate details, but trust and respect seem generally clear enough.

Without trust and respect, Side ‘A’ is left to say, “Well, maybe some day they’ll come around to our way of thinking” (that being a kind portrayal) and simply walks away. This, I think, is closed-minded to the degree that ‘A’ hasn’t sought to reach a thorough understanding (although maybe ‘A’ has). Anyway, it’s not necessarily mean-spirited were someone to say this. With the best intentions, ‘A’ might conclude that ‘B’ is just not ready for the “truth.” But broadly, I’d say this is more like quitting than teaching, which is to say a total failure to teach, at least as I take “teaching” from your question. It would differ somewhat if said by the learner vs the teacher. Then we might conclude that the learner lacked motivation or confidence, for some reason, or perhaps felt alone or unsupported, but again… scenarios.

Another thing to say is, “Well, you just can’t argue with stupid,” as in we can’t even agree on facts, but saying this would be passing judgment on ol’ stupid over there, and likewise hardly open-minded. Personally, I’d never say bias precludes truth, only that we’ll never escape our biases. The real trouble is having bias at all, which I think is what necessitates trust and respect because the less of these is all the more turmoil. I figure any person’s incentive to listen arises from whatever they think will be to their own benefit for having listened. But “benefit” you could define to infinity, and that’s where the post-truth bit is really the troublesome bit because all you have is to trust that other person’s interpretation, and they yours, or else not.

Yeah, I see “post-truth” as “anti-trust,” and for me, that’s a powderkeg, the most ominous outcome arisen of late. People need incentives to listen, but if treating them with dignity and respect isn’t reaching them, then whatever they wanted to begin with wasn’t likely a positive relationship with me. That’s telling of the one side, if not both sides. At the same time, it’s harder to say of students that they have no incentives to listen or that they don’t trust teachers on account of some broader post-truth culture – that might be changing, who knows, but I hope not.

But I’m leaving some of your question behind, and I don’t want to lose sight of where it’s directed more towards the person doing the teaching (how do you teach open-mindedly…).

That part of the question was also in my immediate reaction: respect peoples’ dignity. If it’s me teaching, say, then to have any hope of being open-minded, I intentionally need to respect that other person’s dignity. I need to be more self-aware, on a sliding scale, as to how open- or closed-minded I’m being just now, on this-or-that issue. So that’s empathy, but it’s self aware, and it’s intentional.

Me being me, I’d still be the realist and say you just can never really know what the other person’s motive truly is – pre-truth or post-truth world, doesn’t matter. But whether or not you trust the other, or they you, the real valuable skill is being able to discern flaws of reason, which is what I always said about you – you’ve always been one to see through the bull shit and get to the core of something. I’m no guru or icon, I’m just me, but as I see it just now, the zeitgeist is an emotional one more than a rational one, and there’s plenty to understand why that might be the case. Given that emotional dominance, I do think post-truth makes the world potentially far more dangerous, as a result.

Whatever incentives people are identifying for themselves, these days, are pretty distinct, and that’s a hard one for unity. That saying about partisan politics – “We want the same things; we just differ how to get there” – that doesn’t apply as widely right now so, by virtue of the other side being “the other” side, neither side’s even able to be open-minded beyond themselves because trust and respect are encased in the echo chambers. Things have become distinctly divisive – partisan politics, I mean, but I wonder how deeply those divisions can cut.

So, for instance, lately I find with my Dad that I listen and may not always agree, but where I don’t always agree, he’s still my Dad, and I find myself considering what he says based on his longevity – he’s seen the historic cycle, lived through history repeating itself. And I obviously trust and respect my Dad, figuring, on certain issues, that he must know more than me. On other issues, he claims to know more. On others still, I presume he does. Based on trust and respect, I give him the benefit of the doubt through and through. One of us has to give, when we disagree, or else we’d just continually argue over every disagreement. Someone has to make “benefit” finite by acquiescing, by compromising themselves right out of the debate. If you want peace, someone has to give, right? So should I trust my Dad? I respect him because he’s given me plenty good reason after such a long time. Certainly I’m familiar with his bias, grown accustomed to it – how many times over my life have I simply taken his bias for granted?

I see it even more clearly with my daughter, now, who trusts me on account of (i) her vulnerability yet (ii) my love. The more she lives and learns alongside me, as time passes by, the more cyclically that outlook is reiterated, like how self-fulfilling prophecy works. Other parents keep warning me that the day’s coming when she’ll become the cynical teenager, and I’m sure it will – I remember going through it, myself. But I’m older, now, and back to respecting my Dad, so at least for some relationships, the benefit of the doubt returns. My Dad preceded me, kept different circles than me, and has lived through two or three very different generations than I have. Even as we see the same world, we kind of don’t. So this is what I wonder about that deep cut of division, reaching the level of family – not just one given family but right across the entire population. Do I fact-check my Dad, or myself, or maybe both? Should I? Because neither one of us is infallible.

Anyway, the child of the parent, it’s as good an example as I can think of for questioning what it means to learn with an open mind because there’s no such thing as “unbiased,” yet love, trust, and respect are hardly what we’d call “closed-minded,” except that they are, just in a positive way. They leave no room for scepticism or wariness, the kinds of traits we consider acceptable in healthy proportions. But “teaching” with an open-mind takes on so much more baggage, I think, because the teacher occupies the de facto and the de jure seat-of-power, at least early on – school is not a democracy (although that seems, now, to be changing, too), yet teachers are no more or less trustworthy on the face of it than any other person. That’s also why I reduce my response to respecting human dignity because, even if it’s positive closed-minded, at least it’s a do-no-harm approach.

That jibes with everything I’ve learned about good teaching, as in good teaching ultimately reduces to strong, healthy relationships. Short-term fear vs long-term respect – it’s obvious which has more lasting positive influence. And since influencing others with our bias is inevitable, we ought to take responsibility for pursuing constructive outcomes, or else it’s all just so much gambling. At the core, something has to matter to everybody, or we’re done.

On Friendships On-Line

Lately I’ve been having a shift of perspective.

The first I heard of Facebook was from a Gr. 11 student, Sarah, back in 2005-06. I understood the basic idea and remember calling it, I think, “narcissistic,” or no, it was “otiose,” throwing down the vocab-gauntlet to impress and intimidate all at once. Of course, I was mostly kidding, in that Haha-Foolish-Youngster-Teacher-Knows-Best kind of way. And of course, the friendly feud that followed lasted several weeks or longer: “Mr Rob,” they’d ask, “when are you going to sign on? We want to Facebook you.”

I’d say stuff like, “… neither of those words is a verb,” or “How many more ways do I need to stay in touch with people?” or “You go on wasting your life in front of a glowing blue screen.”

Jokes. All in fun, just kidding, except for… a touch not.

What I didn’t say, from underneath, was, “I’ve never felt much need to draw attention to myself.” Maybe on a performance stage but, even up there, for me, definitely all for fun, not passion. We’re all built differently, what is me is strictly me, and passing judgment wouldn’t have been right or fair, just condescending. So I didn’t say.

I did say “narcissistic,” in fun, to play my role, push the joke. But what I didn’t say was how look-at-me syndrome had always made me itch a little: “Look! Look at me! Are you looking at me?” There’ve been times I’ve even looked away from someone, on purpose, feeling so grated by it. That’s aloof, I admit, and not to excuse it. But again, not mean-spirited, just really different hard-wiring beneath my control. For all our kidding around, adults vs kids, feuding generations, I really just didn’t understand my students’ enthusiasm for sharing themselves on Facebook. For the same reason, not unlike others I’ve known, I never felt much desire to be sharing my own life and times – on-line or off, made no difference.

So, naturally, the day I did sign on, August 2013, Sarah was the first Friend request, right after my brothers. And, naturally, she had me eating crow. And we laughed and said how glad we were to hear from each other. There I was on Facebook, a mere eight years behind the wave – typical me: still waters running deep where the currents are inexorable, even sluggish.

I finally joined for the ease of staying in touch with another friend, Mark, one of those friends for a lifetime, going on forty years, who’s been living 700 miles away for nearly half that time. It’s been great hearing from him more regularly, and catching up was pretty seamless – same laughs, same interests, same ol’ good ol’ friendship. In fact, my gradual unfolding with Facebook has found me appreciating friendship a little more altogether. But, more than that, my experience has found me appreciating otiose, narcissistic Facebook itself.

Facebook’s essential concept – people connecting, sharing, and expressing themselves – hasn’t changed much since its launch in 2004, and I still spot the odd look-at-me in my newsfeed although, to be fair, those pleas have lately seemed fewer and further. By lately, I mean the past two, three years – sluggish currents. Introvert that I am, I’m wary of over-posting my life, and I try to select only what I feel my audience of friends would appreciate or spend time to see (which is somewhat closer to how I’d describe stage performance, and writing too, though still not exactly).

I’ve been pondering my rising appreciation for what Facebook is, or what it can be. And I’ve been wondering whether all my itching over limelighters merely amounted to me guarding myself, and if so, from what? Or whom? And I’ve been wondering about what my old profs called the liminal space, specifically the overlap where Facebook ends and I begin, or maybe better to put it the other way around. I no longer wonder whether, deep down, my inexorable currents are able to ebb and flow. Lately, I’ve been having a shift of perspective about connecting and sharing and friendship.

It’s come about not from Facebook but from travelling. In the past when I travelled, I knew somehow, deep down, I wasn’t getting full value. Some part of me, too much, remained at home. I was afraid to let go, which is another story, but it was essentially the same reticence I had for sharing myself on-line. Travel, though, has that enticing way of inviting us to venture and explore, familiar wisdom that the more we learn, the more we realise how much there is to learn.

In more recent travels – by recent, I mean the past five, six years – the more places I went, the more people I met, the more I learned that sharing myself wasn’t some desperate grab for attention, some break with humility. It was acknowledgement that others would judge me for themselves – not “look at me” but “Hey, this is me,” said with self-confidence and a willingness to meet other people in the overlap. Emerging from the cave is humbling, and maybe daunting, or encouraging, but it doesn’t just broaden our horizons. It can transect them, if we let it. And fair enough, not all at once. But if I’d only ever stayed home…

Questions linger… a sluggish introvert like me doesn’t change overnight. Certainly, though, I’m far less guarded these days, more outgoing, more willing to share in that friendly confident way. When I travel now, I no longer leave some part of me at home when I depart so much as I leave a piece of me behind when I return. By travel, I mean anywhere, from London Drugs to London, England. If we travel to see for ourselves, we’re running errands. Travel should be for sharing. Life is a chance to tell the world we exist, to leave a little of ourselves behind, and to bring some of the adventure back home, thanks to anyone who might leave a little piece of them behind with us.

One friend I met while travelling I credit the most for opening my eyes. Today, 2300 miles apart, I consider Audrey one of my best friends. Early on, Audrey shared a travel story with me about appreciating something unexpected all the more for its rarity. Her story – but, really, her generosity and respect – helped me reconsider the traveller – but, really, me – as uniquely worthy of recognition. Audrey offered me the space to overlap. Where her story ended, mine was able to begin. We’ve stayed in touch ever since… by e-mail. Audrey feels a little averse to Facebook and social media which, to be fair, is not uncommon. Maybe you know somebody similar.

So, am I glad I signed on to Facebook? I definitely don’t kick myself for waiting, not like Sarah did, anyway. On the other hand, I scroll through it every day, so maybe I’m addicted. Like I said, questions linger. But it’s unlike the utility, say, of plain old SMS, which I find really useful – where texting is an errand, Facebook is for travel, and travelling’s something I’ve learned to enjoy. I’ll need more time to decide about blogging, and I have an opinion about on-line comments, too. As for the bulk of social media apps – Twitter, Instagram, all the rest – shades of grey. How many more ways do I need to stay in touch before the means become the end? But let’s take care not to judge with real offense, not with real people at each end of every message.

To let Sarah and Mark stand as representative of my Facebook experience, the value and quality I’ve found on-line is not that of drawing attention to myself so much as people taking genuine interest in hearing from me – like I said, a shift of perspective. More importantly, a shift for the better. Life can still get lonely, at times, because where there’s a place for Type A, that’s just never been me. But the current, somewhat-improved version of me is glad to be more outgoing than before and glad to have an outlet for expression. In an odd sort of way, Facebook helped me to practise, and if not for that, I wonder whether I would have spoken to Audrey that first time.

Facebook has offered me something I’d thought neither possible nor desirable: the chance to let the world know I’m here. Facebook makes that possible. What I must never forget is that my friends are what makes it worthwhile.