I read an opinion editorial by Steve Duin, a newspaper columnist in Portland, Oregon. His story is titled "Ending our Splintering Isolation," and Duin touches on the current thought process surfacing saying that President Obama is turning the United States towards Socialism.
I've found two main points Duin focuses on when addressing this situation that creates a great sense of kairos: the view of the president, and the view of the community.
View of the President -- Right now, there are many citizen arguments made that Obama is trying to create a socialist country. The find socialist roots in his attempts to create a universal health care system, merging more companies/businesses into the government, etc. When President Obama gave his back-to-school speech, there were citizens saying that, "This is a President who believes in community above individuals and its [sic] clear in the talking points sent out to schools" (par. 2).
There are many on this conservative side, and Duin spends his time trying to reason with this viewpoint that turns "community into a shameful code name for socialism" (par. 13) His article works well to bring the opposing opinion into the argument, stating that what this country needs at this time is community support - we need to be cooperative and work with each other.
View of the Community -- Duin's article subtlety addresses another global situation in our communities: the lack of social networking. I read an article that summarized a book by Robert Putnam called "Bowling Alone," which addresses the issue that, due to a number of factors, people have stopped communicating in person, and social communities have fallen apart. People have gotten into the cyber-era of texting, emailing, and using other forms of digital communication to keep in touch with others.
This new form of "culture" is why Steve Duin is arguing for community unity in his article. Very few will deny that more and more people are shifting towards individualism because that is what they witness all around them every single day. Duin's strongest sense of kairos plays off this fact. Since people are drifting away into isolation, it is good that our president is finding ways to connect the public. Since people don't realize the importance of living, concrete communities in our country in the here and now, Duin shapes his article to bring people towards his view – America and its people need to support the communities, and not only is it good that President Obama is doing so, it is imperative that he does.
It sounds like an interesting article in support of Obama's ideals. I think it is interesting how the author, Duin, points out that as time goes on we tend to lose the sense of community because of technologies like cell phones, emailing, texting. In his view, it seems that we almost need a leader who will help unify us into a stronger community.
ReplyDeleteOn a side note, I would probably focus on how the author uses kairos as a method of persuasion. After reading your summary of the article, it seems that there are many ways you can work that in (i.e. what i said above - technology at this moment in time is pulling us apart as a body of people. To fix this, Obama's plans of unifying communities is a crucial moment in time in which it addresses the right people, in the right place and at the right time.The author persuades us that we need the leadership of Obama to save societies.)
I think you do a good job of showing how Duin's article tries to get social/technological kairos to trump political kairos.
ReplyDeleteDuin's article is pretty awesome, by the way. Good choice.