Right Time, Right Place

Considering article we read for class, "Kairos and the Rhetorical Situation," I can see why rhetoricians such as Gorgias made Kairos the primary weapon in their arsenal. When one thinks about it, making an appropriate and effective argument depends greatly on the time and place in which the argument is to be given. It is the first step toward holding sway over an audience. We examined these points in class as we dug into the Martin Luther King "I Have a Dream" speech.

King emphasized time and place to his audience while speaking dramatically in front of the Lincoln Memorial. In fact, there could have been not better time nor place for King's cause. If he was to wait until a later date he might not have captured the opportunity to rally his proponents at the height of racial tensions in the U.S. Had headed the rally in D.C. at an earlier date, he would not have been able to take advantage of the controversial events that occurred prior to the rally, using them as way to add to the ethos and pathos he works masterfully into his speech.

Near the beginning of the speech, King repeated the importance of taking action now. This repetition of urgency was designed to do two things: 1. By repeating the word "now," he is encouraging his audience's short-term memory retention, enabling them to enter into the moment so that they understand the importance of the issue being discussed at this point in time; and 2. he is using the time/place of Kairos to drive home the idea that there is not other time but the present to deal with these problems, that "now" means "here and now." At this moment, this place the decision to move forward must be made, not by the immediate audience, but by the audience listening to the speech on the radio and watching it on television. Time and place, because of modern technology, was transcended in a way that the early sophists could not achieve.

The Right Approach?

After reading the "The First Sophists and Feminism" chapter--specifically the "Sophistic Nomos" section--in Jarrett's study of the sophists, I started to wonder about her comparison of sophistic rhetoric to that of Cixous's écriture féminine. Jarrett claims that Cixous's "agenda becomes rewriting history" (75): Referring to écriture féminine, Jarret claims that "Cixous seeks a writing which will 'allow [a woman] to put the breaks and indispensable changes into effect in her history' (97)" (75). Jarrett compares this to the sophists rereading of nomos to refute logos: "In opposition to logos as a permanent and "natural" structure of law, rationality or language, nomos can be called into play as an alternative, designating the human, and thus necessarily discursive, construction of changeable codes" (74)--or in Cixous's case, changeable histories.

Now, I must include a disclaimer before I proceed further in saying that my intention of examining this logic is not an attempt to belittle, degrade, or diminish women in any way. I am merely trying to understand and challenge the validity of these claims in an attempt to uncover what may be "truth" (wink, wink). Having said that, I shall move forward.

It seems to me that by using the sophistic approach in order to "invent the other history" (75), women are only doing them a dis-service in that they are not uncovering the truth but creating one in opposition to the mistakes made by particular men in the past. I understand that the sophists employed their techniques in order to create alternative paths of thought to show that logos are relative, but is this the intent of Cixous? Or is it her intent to create these alternate histories and leave them in opposition of recorded histories, marked as truth? I only ask these questions because the subject of intent was brought into question with our examination of the Gorgias text. I think that intent is relevant all discussions. What I'm getting at is this: Is it right (morally sound) to rewrite histories bases upon a disagreement or is it better to write the present as moving into the future to further prevent such indiscretions? I'll leave it up to you to decide.

Does This Sound Like Modern Politics to You?

"By particularizing and subjectivizing the world, rhetoric was essentially weakening those bonding forces that hold a culture together, thereby leading to its utter disintegration," postulates John Poulakos, in his article "Gorgias' Encomium to Helen and the Defense of Rhetoric" (6). This is an interesting thought that strikes a chord with weak-kneed advocates of the faith of politics. This concept contributes to the bad reputation that leave a bad taste in the mouths of those who follow and attempt to hold accountable the action of the body politic of the nation, both in Gorgias' time and in ours. Considering the apagogic approach taken by Gorgias in an attempt to alleviate Helen of the blame for starting the Trojan War, I felt as if I was watching a session of Congress on C-SPAN2. Reading Helen was like being a fly on the wall of a certain building on a certain hill in Washington D.C. By showing that impossibility of the idea that Helen was to blame by examining the validity of alternate arguments, Gorgias was able to avoid the issue at hand completely, until the end of his speech--a sort of filibuster technique that instead of providing empty rhetoric, provided alternate means of persuasion. This reminded me of the Three-Card Monty guy that one encounters in most major cities: "Follow the queen. Where's the queen? Where she went, nobody knows."

I have to agree with George Kennedy in that Gorgias' speech is more of a "demonstration of a logical proof" (footnotes, 6) than an attempt at clearing Helen's name. What was Gorgias' motive for freeing Helen of the burden of being the sole person responsible for one of the greatest wars in world history? Did he really find an opportunity to right a historical wrong? Or, was this historical event the perfect model by which Gorgias could show off his wit and eloquence? I have to believe that some of the Sophists had to be showing off as much as seeking a logical way to rationalize the truth of an event--perhaps, another thing to attribute to bad reputation of rhetoric.