Somehow I got through both high school and college without reading Catch-22. I am now about half way through it and it is a truly great book.
In Chapter 11 Captain Black, the squadron intelligence officer, has decided to distinguish himself from other officers by having his men sign loyalty oaths. When other officers copy this, he finds ever more situations in which his men must sign loyalty oaths.
Mentally substitute either “assessment report” or “rubric” for “loyalty oath” as you read this passage. It perfectly captures the absurdity of attempting to force people to buy in to a project in which they are compelled to participate. Captain Black’s expansion of his requirements perfectly depicts the bureaucratic need to constantly extend any project.
“Ok, you’re assessing student learning in their courses, but what about co-curicular learning assessment?”
From the book:
All the enlisted men and officers on combat duty had to sign a loyalty oath to get their map cases from the intelligence tent, a second loyalty oath to receive their flak suits and parachutes from the parachute tent, a third loyalty oath for Lieutenant Balkington, the motor vehicle officer, to be allowed to ride from the squadron to the airfield in one of the trucks. Every time they turned around there was another loyalty oath to be signed…
Without realizing how it had come about, the combat men in the squadron discovered themselves dominated by the administrators appointed to serve them. They were bullied, insulted, harassed and shoved about all day long by one after the other. When they voiced their objection, Captain Black replied that people who were loyal would not mind signing all the loyalty oaths they had to. To all the people who questioned the effectiveness of loyalty oaths, he replied that people who really did owe allegiance to their country would be proud to pledge it as often as he forced them to…
“The important thing is to keep them pledging,” he explained to his cohorts. “It doesn’t matter whether they mean it or not. That’s why they make little kids pledge allegiance even before they know what “pledge” and “allegiance” mean.”
Perfect. Love this.