Time of differend: the rhetoric of the argument over the policy towards the covid-19 pandemic

According to the Jean-Francois Lyotard's postulate about the need to testify about differences, in the following article rhetorical analysis of the multidimensional nature of the dispute about the policy towards the covid-19 pandemic has been made. "Pandemic policies" are material-semiotic strategies of dealing with a crisis situation used by political entities. By emphasizing the role of conflict and rituals of identification and exclusion in social processes, Kenneth Burke's rhetorical theory is a cognitively valuable supplement to the Lyotard's concept. The use of the dramatic pentad to analyze the rhetoric of the dispute over reactions to the covid-19 pandemic allowed the author to answer the following research questions: What elements create a social drama (rhetorical situation)? What is the action about and on what stage does it take place? Who are the characters of this action, what means do they take and what is the purpose of using them? And finally, what relations (ratios) constituting the difference - a rhetorical situation itself - determine the motives of social actors' actions?