As explained in a previous blog post, Captain Yossarian’s main goal in his wartime life is just to survive. This may be hard for non-readers of Catch 22 to believe, as Yossarian is a captain in rank, but it was revealed in the novel that Yossarian was promoted to the rank of captain as basically a PR move. Yossarian was the cause of a disaster in the sky during a bombing run, and the colonels in charge of 256th Squadron (Yossarian’s squadron) decided to promote him to captain and award him with a medal in order to shift the focus away from the disaster and look good. Anyways, Yossarian has an interesting exchange with a much less disillusioned soldier named Clevinger around a third of the way through the novel, “
“Yossarian shot back. ‘Open your eyes, Clevinger. It doesn’t make a damned bit ofdifference who wins the war to someone who’s dead.’
Clevinger sat for a moment as though he’d been slapped. ‘Congratulations!’ he exclaimed bitterly, the thinnest milk-white line enclosing his lips tightly in a bloodless, squeezing ring. ‘I can’t think of another attitude that could be depended upon to give greater comfort to the enemy.’
‘The enemy,’ retorted Yossarian with weighted precision, ‘is anybody who’s going to get you killed, no matter which side he’s on, and that includes Colonel Cathcart. And don’t you forget that, because the longer you remember it, the longer you might live.'”
For clarity, Colonel Cathcart is the commanding officer of the 256th squadron, and also the Colonel who decided to give Yossarian his medal and promotion. Cathcart frequently volunteers the men of the 256th for dangerous missions in order to make himself look good.
Back to what Yossarian said at the end, though: “The enemy,’ retorted Yossarian with weighted precision, ‘is anybody who’s going to get you killed, no matter which side he’s on”.
This statement is philosophically fascinating. The Germans soldiers who try to kill Yossarian and his fellow soldiers have never met them and likely have never even met an American before. But the Colonels and Generals who send the soldiers of the 256th on their missions of war know who each of the soldiers are, are citizens of the same country, and share food and living space with them. They have had intimate experiences with the men that they are sending off to die.
Both parties (the Germans and the colonels) propel the men towards earlier deaths, but given each’s situation, which makes the more morally wrong decision?
Great American Novels 