a combat pilot was crazy by definition

[GoodTaste]

Is the definition in the phrase "a combat pilot was crazy by definition" joking? Or is it serious based the opinion of a pacifist?

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Catch-22 originated as the title of a 1961 novel by Joseph Heller. (Heller had originally planned to title his novel Catch-18, but the publication of Leon Uris's Mila 18 persuaded him to change the number.) The novel's catch-22 was as follows: a combat pilot was crazy by definition (he would have to be crazy to fly combat missions) and since army regulations stipulated that insanity was justification for grounding, a pilot could avoid flight duty by simply asking, but if he asked, he was demonstrating his sanity (anyone who wanted to get out of combat must be sane) and had to keep flying. Catch-22 soon entered the language as the label for any irrational, circular, and impossible situation.

Source: Merriam Webster
https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day

 

[PeterCW]

The novel is meant to be satirical.

 

[emsr2d2]

Also, I don't think you'd have to be a pacifist to think/agree/believe that someone who actually wanted to be a combat pilot probably had to be at least a little bit crazy!

 

[probus]

Also, I don't think you'd have to be a pacifist to think/agree/believe that someone who actually wanted to be a combat pilot probably had to be at least a little bit crazy!

Indeed. A very intetesting book was published a few years ago. I can't recall the author's name now but the title was When Thunder Rolled. The author became a jet fighter pilot simply because he thought it was the coolest job in the world. Apparently it did not occur to him that he would be ordered to bomb and kill people. That happened when he was sent to Viet Nam. At first he resolved to refuse his orders, be branded a coward, and pay the penalties. But a senior colleague talked him into flying with the promise that he would not have to drop his bombs. The rest of the book is the story of how the Air Force inveigled him gradually into becoming an active combat pilot.

By the way, the book is surprisingly well written considering that the author had never before written for publication.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Is the definition in the phrase "a combat pilot was crazy by definition" joking? Or is it serious based the opinion of a pacifist? . . .

The expression "by definition" is a fixed phrase, and it's never meant literally. He means that you have to be crazy to fly combat missions.

It's not about pacifism. It's about self-preservation. Yossarian does not want to die, and he doesn't understand people who put themselves in danger.

Are you reading it? It's a very funny book.

 

[Tarheel]

It's the funniest book I've ever read.

 

[probus]

Me too. I have fond memories of getting absolutely helpless with laughter.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

It's the funniest book I've ever read.

It's right up there.

 

[Tdol]

I can't think of many books that have made me laugh like that. It's stunning. An interviewer said to him that he had never written a book that great since and he answered that no one else had.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

I can't think of many books that have made me laugh like that. It's stunning. An interviewer said to him that he had never written a book that great since and he answered that no one else had.

I did roll on the floor reading Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas. "The only thing that worried me was the ether . . . ."

 

[Tdol]

Hunter was a mixed bag, but he was brilliant when he hit the spot.

This from an interview:

"The first time I noticed George W Bush," Hunter Thompson tells me, "was when he passed out in my bathtub at the Hyatt Regency in Houston. He was with a guy who had come to sell..."

 

[Tarheel]

Yossarian's main concern was that whenever he went on a mission people were trying to kill him. (They were.)

 

[Tdol]

Maybe not when they bombed their own airstrip.

 

[GoesStation]

And strafed it. It was in the contract.

 

[Tarheel]

Maybe not when they bombed their own airstrip.

No, not then.
;-)