Sharon Crowley and Debbie Hawhee tell me that kairos "suggests an advantageous time." It's related, they note, to the Latin opportunitas, which is opportunity. Its root, interestingly, is port--which means opening and leads us to the shipshape term "portal." In short, we might think of kairos or rhetorical timing as an opportune moment, an opening or a window that gives the orator a chance to brave the flood of time and circumstance, to intervene and make words and world matter.
Or so Barack Obama seems to believe. He calls his current stump speech the "closing argument," which suggests his knowledge that the opening grows smaller with time; it is indeed running out. A casual glance at the first version of the text (Oct. 27, Canton Ohio) reveals a near-obsession with time. "One week" starts the speech and becomes a refrain emphasizing his urgency, the closing of his window. In one week, there's a "defining moment"; in one week, we "can turn the page"; in one week, "you can put an end to policies that would divide a nation." But he's not done with time. We "began this journey in the depths of winter nearly two years ago"; "we've come so far and so close"; "that's why we can't afford to slow down, sit back, or let up for one day, one minute, or one second in this last week. Not now. Not when so much is at stake." That's the first page. The later policy section is organized by "When it comes to..." Obama's rhetoric has always concerned time; in recent days, it's become the centerpiece of his discourse. Three notions of time dominate.
First, there is a cyclical view of time, one more apparent in some of his earlier discourse, such as the riff that gave rise to the famous "Yes, We Can" video. Obama subscribes to an old view of revolution, a notion that revolutions come round periodically, revolving to us again, circling around in time. There is a long arc of history, it seems, but it bends--repeatedly--toward justice. Obama speaks of the hope whispered from slave to abolitionist in his early speeches; in this one, he initially pulls in his rhetorical horns (perhaps because of the omnipresent video) and we get this instead: "I know these are difficult times in America. But we have faced difficult times before. The American story has never been about things coming easy--its been about rising to the moment when the moment was hard. It's about seeing the highest mountaintop ["I've been to the mountaintop..."] from the deepest of valleys ["yeah, though I walk through the valley of death.."]. It's about rejecting fear and division for unity of purpose. That's how we've overcome ["We have overcome"] war and depression. That's how we've won the great struggles for civil rights and women's rights and worker's rights."
If the Yes We Can version asserted inevitability for an electorate that doubted his chances and needed assurance, this version asserts agency; it's not easy, but we'll make it happen. Within this agency, however, is a heavenly promise. If King's been to the mountaintop, perhaps, just perhaps, we're living what he saw in that promised land. Not that Obama would say that aloud. But allusions are wonderful things. By the end of this speech, he preaches the old time religion: "Hope!...It's what led immigrants from distant lands to come to these shores against great odds and carve a new life for their families in America; what led those who couldn't vote to march and organize for freedom." So, this is the first view of time--time as cyclical, revolutions for justice assuredly coming around again, just as they did in 1787, 1862, 1933, 1954, and 1968.
Second, Obama seeks to make the time in his text the time in our world. If the change is to come round again, then the times as he defines them in his text need to become the times we experience. The revolution has come around again and he can prove it. He does this through establishment of his authority to define the times (and remember its generally presidents who get to do that in the US). He creates the authority in two ways. One is evidence--he says we face urgent problems and so we get "the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. 760,000 workers have lost their jobs this year." Given the wrong track #'s in polls, we don't need much evidence. But Obama uses evidence both to establish the problem and to outline his plans.
He also uses multiple allusions to Americans past. It is a choir. Obama's choir of voices, its multiple harmonies, establish the young Senator's authority to speak for the nation. It's not just Barack Obama who defines the times. It's MLK, LBJ, and the 23rd Psalm, as I note above. It's Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter: "Understand, if we want to get through this crisis, we need to get beyond the old ideological debates and divides between left and right. We don't need bigger government or smaller government. We need better government--a more competent government." It's Eugene McCarthy: "It's about a new politics." It's Abraham Lincoln: "a politics that calls on our better angels instead of our worst instincts." It's John Kennedy: "one that reminds us of the obligations we have to ourselves and one another." It's Ronald Reagan: "Now, I don't believe that government can or should try to solve all our problems." It's Ron again: "That's what this election is about. This is the choice we face right now." Yep, this is a time for choosing.
That, in turn, is the third sense of time. If revolutions periodically come round, and this is the time for such a change, then we have to make it happen--now. Those past changes didn't pop into place; people worked and bled for them: "Don't think for a moment that power concedes. We have to work like our future depends on it in this last week because it does." This is Chaim Perelman's locus of the irreparable--a typical campaign argument. If we don't change now, we lose the chance: "If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run away from. You make a big election about small things [What great prose--the reversals are lovely]. Ohio, we are here to say 'Not this time.'" He continues, "It's time for something new. The question in this election is not 'Are you better off than you were four years ago?' We know the answer to that. The real question is, 'Will this country be better off four years from now?'"
The question concerns the future, not the past. He asks the audience to choose their future and now is the only moment they can choose--choose now or forever hold your peace: "In one week, we can come together as one nation, and one people, and once more choose our better history." A lovely phrase, that. Our better history. It's in the past, so it's guaranteed better because it's happened and we know it--but somehow we still choose it. As we have chosen it before. Seldom have contingency and necessity been so beautifully tied together in three words. They add up to the irreparable--take this moment to "change this country."
If John McCain's closing argument is all about status--be once again, one more time, that person you have been--then Barack Obama's closing argument is all about time. The time has come because we made it come so make it come again. We can make a better history. And our one week is just about up.
Guess what? In my undergraduate Politics and Mass Media class, we are currently reading Hart's 2000 book Campaign Talk. What did we talk about today as we discussed Chapter Two? How--and why--Hart's DICTION-based analysis suggests that throughout the 1996 campaign, Bill Clinton's recurring campaign theme was, um, time, while Bob Dole's was values.
This is why both longitudinal analysis and mixed methods can be fun sometimes. And profitable, I suppose, for both voters and candidates.
Posted by: V | November 03, 2008 at 04:56 PM