False Double Consciousness: Hermeneutical Resources from the Rush Limbaugh Show. Issue 2 (25th March 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Engelhardt, Jeff; Campbell, Sarah
• Is Part Of: Journal of applied philosophy. Volume 36:Issue 2(2019)
• Page Start: 298
• Page End: 312
• Publication Date: 2018-03-25
• Subjects: Philosophy -- Periodicals; Ethics -- Periodicals; Social ethics -- Periodicals; 100
• DOI: 10.1111/japp.12309
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0264-3758

Abstract

Abstract: This article is a study of the interpretive resources developed by Rush Limbaugh on his radio show. Interpretive resources – also called 'hermeneutical resources' – are concepts, narratives, conceptual frameworks, etc. that enable subjects to make sense of themselves and their world. Much recent scholarship has explored how a community's interpretive resources influence social interactions or character traits in the community. In Limbaugh's transcripts, we found a pattern of what we call 'concept doubling', wherein terms are characterised in a way suggesting that liberals and conservatives express different concepts by their utterances of the same word form. We propose that this promotes an interpretive resource that encourages in those who use it what we call 'false double consciousness'. We contrast the effects of false double consciousness with those of double consciousness, and we consider the interpretive resources available within false double consciousness.