Alice’s Catch-22 Adventures in 1984 Chelm, Part I

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I can’t decide whether the appropriate response is amusement or anger.  But since the majority seems to be opting for the latter, I will go in the other direction.

Formerly, I thought I was trapped in Chelm.  But then I realized that the people of Chelm, foolish though they may have been, were always favorably disposed to one another.  There was no rancor or ill will in Chelm.  Chelm would have been a significant improvement over a society in which everyone seems to define themselves by the people they oppose and hate.  I won’t even bother to make a list. The names will come immediately to your mind.

Then I thought that I lived in a world where “Catch-22” might be the guiding principle.  For those of you unfamiliar with Joseph Heller’s classic depiction of wartime life in a military bureaucracy, Catch-22 is the paradoxical regulation that stipulates that airmen may avoid flying dangerous missions if they are insane and, on that basis, request to be removed from combat duty. However, under Catch-22, making such a request proves that they are rational, and not insane.  So they must continue to fly.  Of course, if they are too insane to recognize the danger and never request relief on account of their insanity . . . they must continue to fly.

In our own world, legislation is adopted to assure that girls have their own athletic teams to compete safely and fairly.  However, Catch-23 (showing off that I know the number of chromosome pairs in a human cell), in order to be fair to the tiny minority of biological males who identify as female, allows them to compete on those girls’ teams. So fairness requires that girls must compete against biological boys, and fairness requires that girls not compete against biological boys. This absurd result illustrates the futility and frustration when bureaucratic systems, even well-meaning ones, overcome common sense.

Amusing, were it not so upsetting.

Compounding the insanity is the fact that words seem to have lost all meaning.  “When I use a word,” said Humpty Dumpty to Alice in rather a scornful tone, “It means just what I choose it to mean–neither more nor less.”  Alice objects that it is questionable whether “one can make words mean so many different things,” but Alice has not seen the word “genocide”  applied to a population that has grown tenfold in Gaza, Judea, Samaria, and Israel, or the word “Nazi” applied to a people seeking to defend themselves and their country from annihilation at the hands of anti-semites.  Alice has never encountered a wonderland in which trigger warnings are required so gentle souls can be insulated from microaggressions, but overt violence directed at Jewish students on campus by those selfsame gentle souls is defended by highly educated university presidents as contextually justified.

So, a world of fools, in bureaucratic systems that defy common sense, where language is abused to the point where words mean anything the speaker wants them to mean and thus lose all meaning.  You can be frustrated and angry.  Or you can be amused.

Welcome to 2025.  Welcome to Israel. Welcome back to 1984.

Welcome to a world in which, to some, democracy means that judges have perpetual veto power over their replacements and may apply their own, subjective, notions of what is appropriate in overturning legislation adopted by a duly elected legislature. Welcome to a world in which that duly elected legislature believes that democracy means that a tiny majority empowers it to overturn basic civil rights.  Welcome to a world in which mobs are permitted, in the name of democracy, to break the law if they are mobs favored by a progressive elite. People marching in support of Black Lives Matter are not at risk from Covid.  People attending church services?  Criminal scofflaws. Welcome to a world in which opponents of vaccination wield power over a vast medical infrastructure.  Welcome to a world in which a powerful medical hierarchy punishes dissent with threats of ostracism.

As Orwell predicted, some pigs are more equal than other pigs. 

Welcome to a world in which the great majority of the electorate opposes exemption from military service for a religious minority, but whose elected representatives perpetuate such an exemption, as well as enormous associated financial incentives, because the religious minority is able to effectively manipulate political parties seeking power, while the parties representing the overwhelming majority despise one another too much to band together to effectuate the will of the people.

Sorry.  Not much room for amusement there.

Welcome to a world in which something called a Human Rights Council of the United Nations, an institution ostensibly committed to the preservation of peace and equality, is dominated by countries in which there are no appreciable human rights and guided only by hatred for the only Jewish State, which, ironically, was facilitated by action of that institution.

Welcome to a world in which barbarians rape, murder, and kidnap in violation of a ceasefire and are lionized as heroes of the resistance by the academic elite of the universities.  Welcome to a world in which victory is rendered almost impossible in that struggle, because the enemy actively seeks the death of its own population and measures success by the number of civilian casualties it incurs.  Welcome to a world in which the side that indiscriminately launches missiles aimed at civilian population centers has captured the sympathy of the street throughout Europe.  The side that responds in order to end the shelling is reviled.

Joseph Heller would have shaken his head in amazement.  Humpty Dumpty would have admitted linguistic defeat.  Alice and Winston Smith would have felt right at home.

In Part II, I will supply remedies for all these problems.  I would be glad to incorporate your ideas, if you would like to share them.

Sometimes I yearn for Chelm.