thumb|upright=1.3|A flowchart showing Joseph Heller's original Catch-22
A catch-22 is a paradoxical situation from which an individual cannot escape because of contradictory rules or limitations. The term was first used by Joseph Heller in his 1961 novel Catch-22.
Catch-22s often result from rules, regulations, or procedures that an individual is subject to, but has no control over, because to fight the rule is to accept it. Another example is a situation in which someone is in need of something that can only be had by not being in need of 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 connotation of the term is that the creators of the "catch-22" situation have created arbitrary rules in order to justify and conceal their own abuse of power.
Origin and meaning
Joseph Heller coined the term in his 1961 novel Catch-22, which describes absurd bureaucratic constraints on soldiers in World War II. The term is introduced by the character Doc Daneeka, an army surgeon who invokes "Catch-22" to explain why any pilot requesting mental evaluation for insanity—hoping to be found not sane enough to fly and thereby escape dangerous missions—demonstrates his own sanity in creating the request and thus cannot be declared insane. This phrase also means a dilemma or difficult circumstance from which there is no escape because of mutually conflicting or dependent conditions.
Different formulations of "Catch-22" appear in the novel. The term is applied to loopholes and quirks of the military system, always with the implication that rules are inaccessible to and slanted against those lower in the hierarchy. In chapter 6, Yossarian (the protagonist) is told that Catch-22 requires him to do anything his commanding officer tells him to do, regardless of whether these orders contradict orders from the officer's superiors.
In a final episode, Catch-22 is described to Yossarian by an old woman recounting an act of violence by soldiers,