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.