A Meta-Rhetoric of Kairos?

Kairos is an interesting topic and I’ve been thinking about it for some time, prior to this class. But the way I’ve been thinking about it has been more aligned with Literary Theory and Philosophy. I’ve encountered it in narrative analyses and even in Theology (Paul Tillich, a Protestant Theologian uses the notion to describe its difference from “logos,” showing how kairos is a kind of “Existential time.”) It is a notion that will be entering much of my writing and discussions in other classes, but here it is more composition-specific. I should say it is “Rhetoric” specific in the sense that is subtly outlined in page 36, Chapter 2 of Crowley’s book:

“We did not use the sophists’ [discourse] approach because it is text oriented” (Crowley 36).

This is a part of what my exploratory paper is getting at. I’m examining (or starting to) whether certain literary ideas need to be carried-over to specifically “composition” ideas and praxis. In other words, I’m concerned that much of literary theory is readerly as opposed to writerly and I encounter some readings where literary theory is grafted onto “composition theory.” I hope Dr. Strickland will bear with me because I know very little about it at present, but am trying to discern how valid integrating readerly (reception) approaches is in regards to writerly (production). I do not know, but I think many theorists might have a quibble with the preference Crowley gives to the “canons” as opposed to a textual approach. Some theorists I think press against the idea of “kairos,” seeing that our culture is so heavily mediated and textual that “immediacy” becomes impossible.

 

Immediacy for me is very possible, indeed impossible to get away from though impossible to carry. It is the “unbearable lightness of being” that the Bas-Relief on page 38 suggests. Kairos is the razor’s edge of the moment; it is in my reading improvisatory. This is why kairos, in literary theory or rhetoric, interests me so much. As a (fairly proficient) Jazz Musician it is a concept I live by (or try). I think of it musically. In a time-signature in music there are two versions of time: the measure and the beat-value. Jazz music is very much learning the “language of time,” being able to hit the “right” note. So I see kairos as rhythm and a way of harmonizing yourself, as rhetor (or saxophonist), to the music (or situations) around you. This metaphor helps me understand it, but certainly there are theories pressing against this notion of kairos as “existential time.”

I don’t want to over-do this post. But I was troubled by one aspect. The text denotes kairos as spatial but doesn’t really put any evidence to this. I have always seen it as temporal. On page 43 it lists “Questions Raised by Kairos” and reminds us twice that it is spatial. I am thinking this refers more to “deixis,” not “kairos.” The text doesn’t show how the notion is spatial so I’m not convinced. Casually, of course, but imprecisely, it can be “spatial,” but in my readings about it elsewhere it was wholly an issue of “temporality.” Yes it is situational, but only in a historic sense. I have usually thought of it as a version of Jung’s “synchronicity” where things events in time “come together” and bear heavier significance. I thought spatiality had little bearing on “kairos” and that the author is confusing the notion a bit.

All nitpicking aside I wholly enjoyed the text. It helps me to be conscious of my situated-ness, as rhetor. More specifically, in terms of my scholarly projects, it presents more evidence of a divide between kairotic immediacy and the tension of our own heavily-mediated, mechanical existence. I really enjoy more classical approaches. After all, why not use the ideas that are already there? From a meta-rhetorical standpoint, is it not even more interesting that an ancient notion like “kairos” is still itself “kairotic?” This kind of thing I really appreciate.

 

Philip Petit "Man on Wire" (1974)

 

-Ryan J

 

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"There is a Japanese visual art in which the artist is forced to be spontaneous. He must paint on a thin stretched parchment with a special brush and black water paint in such a way that an unnatural or interrupted stroke will destroy the line or break through the parchment. Erasures or changes are impossible. These artists must practice a particular discipline, that of allowing the idea to express itself in communication with their hands in such a direct way that deliberation cannot interfere.

The resulting pictures lack the complex composition and textures of ordinary painting, but it is said that those who see well find something captured that escapes explanation.

 

This conviction that direct deed is the most meaningful reflections, I believe, has prompted the evolution of the extremely severe and unique disciplines of the jazz or improvising musician." -Bill Evans, Jazz Pianist