After discussing in class the captivating notion of Kairos that refers to the right rhetorical moment or an advantageous time, it got me to really think of kairotic moments.
As noted in the textbook, “considering the interests at stake in an issue can help a rhetor decide the most advantageous way to frame an argument for a particular audience at a particular time.” This means that certain events or circumstances that relate to the argument may be beneficial in arousing interest from the public. Thus, consideration of the values and interests in circulation around an issue can help rhetors to generate arguments.
A frightening event such as the shooting at Virginia Tech University offered a kairotic moment. As nearly thirty people were murdered by Cho Seung-Hui before he ended his own life, people who heard and witnessed the heartrending experience of calling and receiving eccentric ring tones from phones attached to dead and wounded bodies. The grief must have been unbearable. However, ironically, the parents were told that it was not the right moment to question how the shooting had occurred.
It's engrossing and unfortunate that the aftermath of something horrendous as the shooting at Virginia Tech University is the “wrong” time to talk about security and ultimately, gun control. Although people talked about the shooting, conversations were more focused on the treatment of mental illness in universities, violence in the media and in popular culture, copy cat killings, alienation of immigration students and simply the question of evil.
It could be that gun control and changes in security policies do not draw immediate attention from the public as not enough events occurred between massacres to make weapons of mass killing harder to obtain. This may convey that reducing the number of guns will neither relieve mentally sick people to stop themselves from killing.
However, it certainly aroused attention from the public on how to act as comprehensively and cautiously as possible in order to prevent the next massacre instead of punishing the latest crime. Although a large part of me feel as though the families who have suffered the loss of loved ones were receiving unfair treatment as question on how a student with history of mental illness could obtain a gun lacked public attention, I understand why conversations devoted to the future of safety in America became the dominant kairotic issue as it concerned everyone and held the possibility of preventing the next crime and eventually save sacred lives.
Thus, kairotic moments, as heartwarming or heartrending it may be, will either receive much or minimal attention from the public depending on the audiences' values and interests.
I agree! I feel in this example, when the families were asking questions it was not the wrong time. They had a right to know. I would have wanted to know right then and there, just like they did.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Although many media outlets talked about several other important issues, the main one that they should have been talking about was gun control. What is unfortunate is that even though this kairotic moment was lost, there will mostly likely be another one in the future.
ReplyDeleteI think that the textbook was trying to get at this. By skirting the larger issue at hand, the window of opportunity to effectively discuss it was being lost -- and that certainly is unfortunate.
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