Kairos in Rhetoric
From DigitalRhetoricCollaborative
Kairos (Greek: καιρός - usually translated as “the opportune or appropriate time”) is a moment when conditions are fit for the accomplishment of a crucial action. Rhetorically speaking, it is a particularly opportune window for a rhetor to introduce a point. From a speaker’s standpoint, strategically timing the implementation of an idea in a rhetorical context demonstrates kairos.
The origin of the word, though non-rhetorical, illustrates its modern use well. Its first meaning referred to “a narrow slit in a wall through which a soldier would shoot an arrow. If the target was moving and the soldier only had a very narrow gap, the timing of the shot was crucial.”
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Introduction
The analyzed artifact is a letter from John D. Rockefeller, Jr. to Nicholas Murray Butler, a former president of Columbia University. The letter was published in The New York Times on June 6th, 1932. In the letter, Rockefeller publicly announced his support for the repeal of alcohol prohibition and the 21st Amendment. This sent shockwaves through the American public, because he had previously been a staunch supporter of prohibition--a lifelong teetotaler.
Artifact Analysis
Amending the US Constitution is incredibly difficult. The writers made sure that the document could only be changed with great and widespread consensus: it must pass both the House and the Senate by a two-thirds vote and then be ratified by three-fourths of the States. For this to happen, public opinion must be strong and widespread enough to warrant it, and that can only happen with the perfect confluence of circumstances. Prohibition passed because of the confluence of women’s suffrage, WWI, and powerful interest group activity. Repeal was only made possible a few years later because of a drastic shift in public opinion, and one of the biggest pulls came from a shocking letter from J. D. Rockefeller in 1932, in which he publicly declared in The New York Times that he had changed his mind and no longer supported Prohibition, and now supported Repeal. This rocked American conservatives to their core.
Prohibition originally passed with the help of propaganda from the Anti-Saloon League, promising that Prohibition would cure society of all its ills: laziness, inefficiency, violence, poverty, and liver disease would be a thing of the past. When this failed to happen, and organized crime increased and became mythologized, and drinking in speakeasies became glamorized, public opinion started to waver. Then, the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression happened, and support for prohibition withered drastically as other powerful interest groups began releasing propaganda that promised Repeal would fix all of their problems. Just as Prohibition was presented as a societal panacea, Repeal was presented likewise. Skip ahead to 1932. It is in the darkest pits of the Depression, and many people are using Prohibition as a scapegoat. The Repeal advocates are gaining ground, and people could honestly just use a distraction from their woes. The conservative base of America was still hesitant to mobilize, however, until they received a bombshell from one the most powerful and respected men in America. When Rockefeller changed his mind and made it public in The New York Times, it was at the perfect time - a crucial moment in American History when reform was in the air, and laws that never would have passed otherwise flew through Congress. One of these was Repeal. Rockefeller’s ethos was such that his opinion held great sway with the average citizen. Prohibition scholars regard this as the nail in the coffin of Prohibition.
Additional Resources
Smith, John E. (1969). Time, times, and the ‘right time’: “chronos” and “kairos.” The Monist, 53, 1-13. Article.
