The term Kairos is a relatively new term to me. The word, by definition, means "the right or opportune moment to do something" (Praxus 84). When I first heard of Kairos, I immediately thought it was similar to emotional intelligence. For both emotional intelligence and Kairos, the person or author must know how the audience will receive the information they are giving and appropriately convey their message at it's most effective time. Now that I am aware of its use in writing, I find Kairos' application in each and every piece I come across.
Whether it be a speech by the President over policy involving a current event, a teenager finding the perfect time to break up with their significant other, or that teen first saying "I love you," Kairos is involved. There is an opportune moment for everything, and if done right, the message can be conveyed clearly and accepted well. However, things can go wrong. If someone misreads the Kairos of a situation, the audience can be horribly misled and end up angry. Specifically, in the Microsoft letter, the author did not find the right moment to tell his employees they were fired. Rather than waiting for a newsletter to circulate about the potential job losses and then having a staff meeting at a time when everyone was caught up on the state of the company, the author chose to lump the laying-off with a terribly confusing email. The audience was not mentally prepared for what was coming, so he received backlash for his decision.
The most interesting concept I came across while studying Kairos was that it "both constrains and enables what a rhetor can say or write effectively in a particular situation" (Praxus 84). This means that one moment can both limit the number of topics and emotions that could be said or revealed and, if at the perfect moment, also give someone complete freedom to share something they otherwise could not have. I pose two questions about this: How can both of those things happen in one moment? Or even better yet, is there really a "perfect" time for anything?
From prior experience, I have learned that you can not please everyone. Rhetors can attempt to find the right audience, right place, and right time to convey their message, but every individual has unique thoughts and reactions to information. I believe the art to Kairos and rhetoric is that it is imperfect--an individual can come very close to affecting 100% of the audience, but they will never be fully effective. Those that come close, though, are the ones who are remembered for being "moving" and "legendary." A proper use of Kairos is what separates the good from the great.
This was an interesting take on Kairos! Before reading up on it, I genuinely hadn't heard of it before. I didn't know what it was, what it meant, or how it could possibly be applied to an advocacy project. I hadn't thought of equating it to emotional intelligence before. I see what you mean, "the opportune moment" could pertain to any number of things. Having emotional intelligence would greatly increase the chance of using the right moment to your advantage.
ReplyDeleteLike emotional intelligence, Kairos is necessary for effectively persuading or advocating for something you believe in. It can be incredibly useful or equally damning. You used the Microsoft letter as a poor example, and I agree with that as well. It had the wrong timing, the wrong context, and the wrong message. Instead of leaving employees with any sense of regret, the email served only to confuse them.
Today in class, we watched two powerful speeches. What both of them did was move a crowd of people into genuinely feeling for their cause. It was the right time, to the right group of people. The way they delivered their speeches was drastically different, and yet both of them can be only be described as powerful speeches given "at the opportune moment."
Unlike you, I have heard of the term Kairos before. However, I never know that it was a term used in rhetoric. The way I know Kairos is from a religious retreat. In that retreat they define Kairos as “God’s time.” During the retreat people share things on their mind and no one is there to judge. So it makes sense that the word Kairos used in rhetoric is all about the perfect time to say something. On the retreat, it was the perfect, or most kairotic, time to say what was on one’s mind. I agree with the idea that the Kairos of a paper/email/speech is one of the most important parts of those respective pieces of rhetoric. If you come up with a really well put together sentence, but use that sentence in the wrong part, then it loses a lot of its weight. In order for Kairos to work effectively, the words being said and the time those words are said must be in sync with each other. If one or the other is off than it will not impact or convince people in the same way that it would if it were all in sync with each other.
ReplyDeleteFor me, I have always been taught the theory of kairos but in a differing vocabulary term. I have always been taught that using time and place when speaking to others was called tact. This meant that when I was addressing people I had to be tactful, or mindful of who I was speaking to and when I was speaking to them. So the idea of kairos is not all too unfamiliar to me. However, I enjoyed your perspective and the different aspects of kairos that you addressed. I, personally, would not have considered how kairos can never be 100% perfect. I also enjoyed how you addressed how how history uses those people who most effectively utilize rhetoric and especially kairos. I think the best example of a person effectively using kairos in history is Hitler. Unfortunately he was quite a charismatic speaker and saw an opportunity for timing in the shape of a country facing desperate economic times, and a less than ideal political system. So all in all I really enjoyed the in depth perspective you offered, not only for the idea of kairos itself, but also into the people who utilize kairos.
ReplyDeleteFor me I have never really know the definition behind the term Kairos, however I had heard it before. So coming to class and first hearing everyone with their differnt takes on it then adjusting those definitions to form a correct or more accurate one was very interesting to me. I like the spin you took on the typically definition of the word and explained how it ties in to every part of everyday life. I found it very interesting how you incorporated how in history people who are most influential tend to show kairos more than a typical person. However it is true that everyone uses it in everyday life, and everyone uses it to different extents. I enjoy how you mention that it is all about being in the right place at the right time and talking to the right person. This is a very true statement as for everything is truly up to fate.
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