Editing Catch-22 (logic) (section)

== Usage ==
The term "catch-22" has filtered into common usage in the English language. In a 1975 interview, Heller said the term would not translate well into other languages.<ref name=Telegraph>"[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/3669372/A-classic-by-any-other-name.html A classic by any other name]", ''The Telegraph'', 18 November 2007.</ref>

James E. Combs and Dan D. Nimmo suggest that the idea of a "catch-22" has gained popular currency because so many people in modern society are exposed to frustrating bureaucratic logic. They write of the rules of high school and colleges that:

<blockquote>This bogus democracy that can be overruled by arbitrary fiat is perhaps a citizen's first encounter with organizations that may profess 'open' and libertarian values, but in fact are closed and hierarchical systems. Catch-22 is an organizational assumption, an unwritten law of informal power that exempts the organization from responsibility and accountability, and puts the individual in the absurd position of being excepted for the convenience or unknown purposes of the organization.<ref name=CombsNimmo>James E. Combs & Dan D. Nimmo, ''The Comedy of Democracy''; Westport, CT: Praeger (Greenwood Publishing Group), 1996; {{ISBN|0-275-94979-6}}; p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=VJw9OdBFgmgC&pg=PA152 152].</ref></blockquote>

Along with George Orwell's "[[doublethink]]", "catch-22" has become one of the best-recognized ways to describe the predicament of being trapped by contradictory rules.<ref>Richard King, "[http://thesmartset.com/article/article07181101.aspx 22 Going on 50: Half a century later, the world is full of Catch-22s]"; ''The Smart Set'', 20 July 2011.</ref>

A significant type of definition of [[alternative medicine]] has been termed a catch-22. In a 1998 editorial co-authored by [[Marcia Angell]], a former editor of the ''[[The New England Journal of Medicine|New England Journal of Medicine]]'', argued that:

<blockquote>It is time for the scientific community to stop giving alternative medicine a free ride. There cannot be two kinds of medicine—conventional and alternative. There is only medicine that has been adequately tested and medicine that has not, medicine that works and medicine that may or may not work. Once a treatment has been tested rigorously, it no longer matters whether it was considered alternative at the outset. If it is found to be reasonably safe and effective, it will be accepted. But assertions, speculation, and testimonials do not substitute for evidence. Alternative treatments should be subjected to scientific testing no less rigorous than that required for conventional treatments.<ref name= Angell1998>{{cite journal |title= Alternative medicine – The risks of untested and unregulated remedies |last1= Angell |first1= M. |last2= Kassirer |first2= J.P. |author-link= Marcia Angell |journal= [[New England Journal of Medicine]] |volume= 339 |issue= 12 |pages= 839–841 |year= 1998 |pmid= 9738094 |doi= 10.1056/NEJM199809173391210 |display-authors= 1 |citeseerx= 10.1.1.694.9581 }}</ref></blockquote>

This definition has been described by [[Robert L. Park]] as a logical catch-22 which ensures that any [[complementary and alternative medicine]] (CAM) method which is proven to work "would no longer be CAM, it would simply be medicine."<ref name=Park_Catch-22>[[Robert L. Park|Park, Robert L.]], [http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN02/wn032902.html Alternative Medicine: The Clinton Commission's Catch-22.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304061048/http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN02/wn032902.html |date=2016-03-04 }}</ref>

U.S. Circuit Judge [[Don Willett]] referred to [[qualified immunity]], which requires a violation of constitutional rights to have been previously established in order for a victim to claim damages, as a catch-22: "Section 1983 meets Catch-22. Important constitutional questions go unanswered precisely because those questions are yet unanswered. Courts then rely on that judicial silence to conclude there's no equivalent case on the books. No precedent {{=}} no clearly established law {{=}} no liability. An Escherian Stairwell. Heads government wins, tails plaintiff loses."<ref>{{cite news |last1=Ford |first1=Matt |date=September 12, 2018 |title=Should Cops Be Immune From Lawsuits? |url=https://newrepublic.com/article/151168/legal-revolt-qualified-immunity |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191126202001/https://newrepublic.com/article/151168/legal-revolt-qualified-immunity |archive-date=November 26, 2019 |access-date=November 25, 2019 |magazine=[[The New Republic]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite court|litigants=Zadeh v. Robinson|vol=902|reporter=F.3d|opinion=483|court=5th Cir.|date=2018|url=https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=11429370861168916271}}</ref>