Historical time between Chronos and Kairos: on the historicity of The Kairos Document manifesto, South Africa, 1985

ABSTRACT

Chronos and kairos are two Greek words that designate different temporal experiences not entirely opposed, but nonetheless irreducible to each other. This difference is highly relevant to theoretical debates on historical time, despite the hegemony of the chronological paradigm in modern historiography. This article upholds that claim by analyzing a South African manifesto titled The Kairos Document (KD), issued in 1985. My aim is to present a study on the historicity of the KD, arguing that the document is a paradigmatic case for, on the one hand, understanding the particular form of temporal experience encompassed by the notion of kairos, and on the other hand, applying the difference between chronos and kairos for historiographical analysis. I present a twofold approach to the KD. First, I situate the manifesto within its broader political, social and intellectual context, addressing as well the impacts it managed to inflict upon chronos-time. Secondly, I demonstrate how the KD grasps its own historical moment from a disruptive temporality that emerges on the threshold between a crisis and the urgency of taking timely action (kairos). I conclude this article by claiming that the kairological dimension of historical time becomes more evident in situations experienced as crisis.

KEYWORDS:

• Theory of history
• temporality
• Apartheid
• contextual theology
• rhetoric
• messianic time

Acknowledgements

This article has had many versions and I would like to thank the following people for their critical comments: Aryanne Araújo, Valdei Araujo, Berber Bevernage, Augusto de Carvalho, Marie-Gabrielle Verbergt, Danilo Marques, Rafael Verbuyst, Eline Mestdagh, Taynna Marino, Eva Williems, Alexandre Marini, and Tessa Boeykens.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. In this article I use the version published in the compilation edited by Leonard (2010). The citations of the document will be noted by the abbreviation ‘KD,’ followed by the page number from this version.

2. In a remarkable aphorism, Hippocrates stated that: ‘Chronos is that wherein there is Kairos, and Kairos is that wherein there is no great Chronos’. Quoted in Agamben (2005, 68).

3. For a discussion about manifestos as a genre that proliferates in crises situations, see Burger (2002).

4. All these manifestos can be consulted in the volume edited by Gary Leonard (2010).

5. Of course, there are some historians and philosophers of history who have already discussed the notion of kairos in their works. See, for instance, Jordheim (2007); Peters (2016); Smith (1969); Strath (2015).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the CAPES-Brazil under Grant number [88881.361991/2019-01]; and the FAPEMIG-Brazil under Grant number [11266].

Notes on contributors

Walderez Ramalho

Walderez Ramalho is a PhD Student at the Federal University of Ouro Preto, working at the intersection between theory and philosophy of history, history of historiography, and contemporary history. He has completed his licentiate degree in History at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (2012), and he also holds an MA in History from the same university (2015). During August 2019 and June 2020, he was a visiting PhD Student at Ghent University. His current research deals with the notion of kairos as an experiential structure of historical time. He is especially interested in investigating unconventional forms of historical writing that spell out a kairological experience of historical time, with special emphasis on political and artistic manifestos written in the first half of the twentieth century.