The Catch-22 of Ableism

CN: ableism, racism, war, immigration/detention, police brutality/murder/gun violence, COVID-19

Rejecting the Fallacy of American Exceptionalism

As I wrote on Book Riot in June 2019: “Catch-22 by Joseph Heller will always be one of my favorite books.” Ever since I found my mom’s worn, paperback copy from the 1970s in 2002 or ’03, when I was 13, I’ve been obsessed with Heller’s incisive, irreverent anti-war satire. I wrote on BR: “Milo (Minderbinder), in particular, seemed like a prophetic figure — in the worst possible way. I saw parallels between him and the oil companies that were then profiting from the war in Iraq or industries that privatized natural resources, like bottling water.” The novel, along with the second Iraq war, helped me to view capitalism, American imperialism, and war profiteering for what they are. Until we deliberately reject an ideology, we often unintentionally buy into it. This is why I talk about Althusser and interpellation all the time.

Catch-22 represented a paradigm shift in my increasingly curious but cynical adolescent mind. It helped me reject the doctrines of American exceptionalism, which I had never fully adopted. For the first time, I imagined how people outside of the US might view us. Granted, the old, Italian man in the brothel is amoral and lecherous by his own admission, but he exposes American exceptionalism as a fallacy:

“Rome was destroyed, Greece was destroyed, Persia was destroyed, Spain was destroyed. All great countries are destroyed. Why not yours? How much longer do you really think your own country will last? Forever? Keep in mind that the earth itself is destined to be destroyed by the sun in twenty-five million years or so.” Unquestioningly considering the US the best country on Earth, simply because we live here, seemed patently illogical, even paradoxical.

I was a twelve-year-old seventh grader on September 11, 2001. I remember the horrific terrorist attacks vividly. A year or two later, I was equally horrified by the Bush administration’s invoking the attacks as a pretext to rationalize an unrelated invasion of Iraq. The displays of patriotism during this period disgusted me. I have the tendency to view everything as arbitrary or as a social construct (more on this later). I asked myself why we colonized this particular land, symbolized by this flag, in these borders, and had no satisfactory answer. I hope I never again hear the song “God Bless the USA,” so ubiquitous in those days.

Flags and patriotic songs can function as a form of metonymy, or replacing a broad idea with its symbol (for example, saying “the crown” and meaning “the king” or even “the monarchy.”) This is often an example of sentimentality and fuzzy thinking. Someone like me cannot critique these patriotic displays or specifics of US foreign policy without someone accusing us of opposing the US in general. Any dissent is viewed with suspicion and even conflated with threats. If most of my neighbors put US flags on their cars after 9/11, does it make me look “unpatriotic” if my family and I don’t want one?

As part of their unconscious indoctrination into American imperialism and white supremacy, we teach US children (often implicitly) that other countries should aspire to be like us. Of course, cultural differences are not inferiority. Having capitalism, Christianity, and/or democracy imposed on a country by force is incomparable to voluntarily emulating that culture or nation. Once again, the ideology of patriotism conflates disparate ideas, flattens nuance, or distorts reality.

Catch-22 and Ableism

I usually try to state my thesis near the beginning of an essay. In this case, though, I wanted to first explain how Catch-22 influenced my opinion of the United States’ foreign policy and place in the world. My anger at the Iraq war preceded any understanding of ableism as a structural oppression. I didn’t even know the world “ableism” per se as a teenager. I did know, however, that my friends and I were often excluded or discriminated against due to our disabilities.

Catch-22 also provided me with language to articulate the absurdities of bureaucracies and the ironies of ableism and systemic oppression in general. As a child with cerebral palsy and multiple types of doctors and physical therapies, I already understood innately how capricious and illogical abled adults could be. At a summer camp for disabled kids in the ’90s, I complained to my counselors that I was overheated. The counselors took me from the air-conditioned main building to the nurse’s station, which was stuffy and not air conditioned. I didn’t have to know the word logic to realize that was illogical. This type of behavior always annoyed me, but it also terrified me that such incompetent adults had any power over me.

I hope that my lifelong impatience with ableism and with incompetent authority figures comes through in my work. It’s especially evident in my story “The Lost Year,” written 2011–13 and published in 2017 (on p. 20 here). However, I also wanted to define the connection between ableism and absurd catch-22s. I hope it’s implicit in my fiction, but I want to make it explicit in theory.

The Oxford English dictionary (via Google) defines a catch-22 as “a dilemma or difficult circumstance from which there is no escape because of mutually conflicting or dependent conditions.” This word has entered the lexicon via Heller’s novel. Here’s the passage that defined it in the novel:

“There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

‘That’s some catch, that Catch-22,’ he observed.

‘It’s the best there is,’ Doc Daneeka agreed.” (Heller 52)

As I explained on BR: “The protagonist, John Yossarian, is a bombardier in his late 20s in the United States Air Force during World War II. Each time Yossarian approaches the quota for missions flown, his superior officers raise the quota. Hypothetically, if the squadron’s doctor declares Yossarian ‘insane,’ he can be dismissed. However, asking to be dismissed would demonstrate a rational desire for self-preservation, thus making him ‘sane.’ This self-contradictory clause, Catch-22, became a common expression.”

Nowadays, we consider words like “crazy” ableist. However, the point remains: much of ableism — saneism in particular — relies on denial of the disabled subject’s agency and competence.

If disabled people are stereotyped as incompetent, then even requesting accommodations means that we must not “really” need them. If we do well WITH accommodations (including medications), some experts assume that we no longer need them or never needed them in the first place. But again, the accommodations enable the disabled person to appear “too competent or healthy” to need them. This is a clear catch-22, almost as absurd as in Heller’s novel.

An ableist catch-22, then, is simply “a dilemma or difficult circumstance from which there is no escape because of mutually conflicting or dependent conditions,” which is created due to ableism. Once I’ve defined this, it’s clear that there are countless examples of ableist catch-22s, which are often integral to how systems and bureaucracies function.

More Examples

@kim_from_kansas Tweeted on March 28, 2018:

‘High functioning’ is used to deny support.

‘Low functioning’ is used to deny agency.”

I think this Tweet is a succinct example of an ableist catch-22, or the paradoxes that abled people constantly use to marginalize and oppress disabled people. Many disabled people have recently rejected high or low functioning labels for this reason. They also contribute to the hierarchy of disability.

In everyday language, the idea of an ableist catch-22 is similar to a double bind or “Damned if you do; damned if you don’t.” In other words, there are only two possible outcomes, but both are out of the disabled person’s control or equally detrimental to them.

Another related expression, often used on Disability Twitter, is “moving the goalposts.” (Specifically, the recent expression “moving the goalposts” fits one aspect of the novel Catch-22: raising the number of missions as bombardiers reach them.) In a 2017 essay for The Body is not an Apology, I wrote: “Vague descriptions like ‘Other duties as assigned’ and ‘assist with department tasks’ leave room for tasks that might be impossible for people with certain disabilities.” Legally, this is an example of plausible deniability with regard to discrimination and ADA (non-)compliance.

After graduating from Stonehill College during the last recession in 2011, I went on many of these frustrating job interviews. I often had all the job requirements on paper but thought that other qualities, like being non-disabled, were implicit. Legally, interviewers knew that they couldn’t reject me for my disability or ask me about it. Still, in circular conversations, they kept asking me if I could maybe drive, carry coffee, stay late, and other duties not in the job description. This is a classic example of moving the goalposts. Suddenly, new job duties materialize if a disabled applicant shows up. The “ideal” job candidate is non-disabled and can lift 50 pounds, just in case they ever have to do so. In an ableist environment, the realities of our disabilities are often misconstrued as a lack of ambition or cooperation.

Later in the same essay, I wrote: “One agency scheduled appointments for me without consulting me, even after I asked them to stop. Then the counselor would yell at me [over the phone] for ‘not showing up’ to my appointment. I’d actually cancelled, and the receptionist hadn’t passed along the message.” In this case, the agency was effectively blaming me for their own practices. The counselor didn’t have a voice mailbox, the receptionist didn’t take my message, and they still made appointments for disabled clients without our consent. Many disabled people don’t drive, rely on friends, family, or paratransit for transportation, or have little stamina. This is a great example of a bureaucratic, ableist catch-22.

When they presume disabled people are incompetent, agencies’ own incompetence always somehow gets projected back onto us disabled clients. Conversely, if we take initiative, we’re labelled difficult, even noncompliant. In my early twenties, I used to get angry when people condescended to me or apparently lied. Later in my twenties, I realized that even expressing anger or frustration at official agencies was a function of white privilege. I saw footage of white security guards forcibly removing a Black mom from a government agency after she merely sat on the floor. (There were no empty seats.) After that, I tried to keep in mind that policies were probably also out of the workers’ control and vent my frustrations elsewhere.

Almost everyone — disabled or not — is familiar with the experience of calling customer service, being transferred to a manager, and then back to the first department indefinitely. Everyone keeps passing the buck; no one wants to take responsibility. Of course, government agencies, healthcare providers, insurance companies, and schools can be as labyrinthine and inaccessible as any other customer service line.

Ironically, to navigate bureaucracies, clients/customers feel like they must know the organizations’ rules better than their own employees do. I’ve found this particularly true when dealing with agencies designed to help disabled people. I’ve literally had to correct employees who were giving me the wrong information or circular logic. This is not pedantry; it’s self-advocacy. I was trying to prevent my case from being handled incorrectly, which would have adversely impacted my life.

I often received official mail dated at least 10 days in the past. Most local mail reaches me in a day or two, so I suspected that this was backdated or sitting on a desk for days before being mailed. It contained urgent instructions: for example, mentioning past due forms that I’d never received in the first place. It then became my responsibility to make multiple phone calls and fix the situation. As always, the onus is on the disabled person to address agencies’ errors.

Individual, clerical errors may be accidental, but the structure of bureaucracies is not. On BR, I noted: “Another hilarious character name is Major Major Major, who gets promoted in a clerical error.” Catch-22 is hilarious, but there’s nothing hilarious about bureaucratic errors and redundancies. Bureaucracies are designed to be inefficient, frustrate clients/applicants, and weed us out. I’m white, educated, single, not a parent, speak English as my first/only language, and am easily understood in person and via phone. This adds up to privilege, meaning that I might make it through. When names are misspelled in real life, they can delay health insurance or housing, or disenfranchise voters. This happens more often to people of color, immigrants, and people with speech and intellectual disabilities, for example, than to me.

COVID-19 Response

On March 30th, 2020, I Tweeted:

“(COVID-19)

To use logic, both statements cannot/should not be true

1) We’re more at risk

&

2) We’re de-prioritized for tests & care.

Total #ableistcatch22. Coining this hashtag now (I checked for it), but I might write about this idea later.”

9:02 PM · Mar 30, 2020·Twitter Web App

On April 10, I Tweeted about the irony of abled people who harassed us last year for needing single-use plastics now suggesting that everyone use them to avoid contagion. “When only a few of us need them, we’re killing the environment. But if everyone needs them, that’s obviously a lot more potential pollution, which suddenly doesn’t matter. So, the common denominator is just ableism. #AbleistCatch22” Either way, racists, sexists, ableists, etc. twist logic to hit their targets and anything we do.

As I’ve said before, sudden COVID-19 accommodations really show that abled people are still considered normal or baseline. It’s suddenly “reasonable” when they need it. Movie studios released movies on-demand early when social distancing started. This is yet another idea that we (disabled and sick people) came up with and then BEGGED for, for years. And we were told no, due to copyright/piracy concerns. Instead of considering these accommodations an emergency, temporary measure, they should be part of the broader issue of accessibility, in work, entertainment, and more.

In March, I Tweeted that the COVID-19 testing process itself was riddled with ableist catch-22s. I’ve copy/pasted them here:

I understand resources are limited, but it’s a catch-22 that it’s almost impossible to get tested unless you’ve contacted a diagnosed person. How would you know if you contacted a contagious but asymptomatic carrier?! They’ll never know how many people have it. Stay home!

I like logic, so these 2 contradictory statements bother me:

1) Carriers who show no symptoms spread COVID-19 widely.

2) Only those who show symptoms should be tested.

If 1) is true, we really have no idea how many people are carrying the virus. In the interest of public health, everyone should assume 1) is true. Even if you think you’re healthy, please assume that you’re endangering more vulnerable people by going out for non-emergencies.

The only reason people say 2) is because there aren’t enough tests, and they’re expensive. In the absence of free, widespread testing, social distancing and taking precautions as if we may spread the virus to others is the only safe/ethical option.

Of course, medical racism, ableism, and ignorant assumptions about the quality of disabled lives can also factor into who gets care. Together, they add up to eugenics in practice and policy. Disabled people have Tweeted about the circular process of calling a COVID-19 hotline, then their GP, who redirects them to the hotline. Circular processes are designed to be inefficient and make at least some people give up out of frustration.

Kafka and Police Brutality

Literary critics often describe Catch-22 as “Kafkaesque.” I love Franz Kafka’s work too, and I can definitely see Kafka’s influence in Catch-22’s self-contradictory government agencies and egotistical authority figures. Like many others, I consider Kafka’s work uniquely applicable to police brutality in particular.

Satire is often considered hyperbolic, but sometimes, no exaggeration is needed. Josef K., the protagonist of Kafka’s novel The Trial, is arrested by capricious authorities. They never tell him why he was arrested, then give him a series of contradictory instructions, which they punish him for not following. Of course, following paradoxical instructions would be impossible.

In Angie C. Thomas’ excellent 2017 novel The Hate U Give, Khalil, a Black teenager, is murdered by a white police officer. When Khalil reaches for a hairbrush in his car, the officer shoots him, assuming he has a gun. Thomas has said that she was inspired to write the novel after real-life cases of white officers killing unarmed Black men. In many of these cases, the officers give the victim contradictory instructions, such as: “Show your ID” (usually in a wallet or glove box) and “Put your hands up.” Obviously, the person cannot do both simultaneously. In these cases, the arrested person is in a catch-22, no matter how they react. Many victims of police brutality are both Black and disabled. Many poor, disabled, and Black people are considered “resisting arrest” without being told their alleged crimes, given contradictory instructions, or jailed before trial.

Immigrants and refugees are also detained indefinitely in Kafkaesque nightmares. Under the Trump administration, immigrant children were sent to their own hearings, in English, via video teleconference with no live interpreters. These situations are all outrageous but sadly true. I find parts of Catch-22 hilarious, but the main ideas of Heller and Kafka’s novels, and their applications today, are anything but funny or fabulist. They’re deadly serious and real social commentary.

Conclusion

Denial of accommodations is so personal. Bad teachers and counselors tell students: “If you can’t do this, you can’t handle college! You’re not college ‘material!’” and so on. The phrase “not college material” is a perfect example of using classism, sexism, racism, and ableism to stereotype students while blaming them for their own oppression on a deeply insulting, personal level. The implication is that the marginalized student, as a person, is inherently not “college material” — that is, not “made” for college, almost regardless of their individual actions. To defy the odds, we must be considered exceptional.

I understand that not everyone likes critical theory or finds it or its terms useful. Depending on your perspective, it can be confusing, incisive, reductive, or a helpful starting point. As the cliché goes: if all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail. Like a hammer, these terms are tools. Or if you prefer another type of metaphor, they can be lenses for critical analyses. I consider The Uncanny and logical fallacies like catch-22s useful terms to explain the oppression of ableism. Once I’d identified them, it’s easy to notice how prevalent they are.

Others have referred to ableism or police brutality with the expressions catch-22 or Kafkaesque, but as with the uncanny, I wanted to go back to the source and analyze literature. Feel free to tag more examples with #AbleistCatch22.

Work cited

Heller, Joseph. Catch-22. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1955, 1961.