Progressive planning, biased discourse, and critique: An agentic perspective

Abstract

Progressive theorists and reflective practitioners have exhorted agents to renounce exploitative planning discourses. This repudiation can, however, only be successful if the agent’s own investment in biased discourses is accounted for. Reflecting on the work of Jon Elster, John Thompson, and Raymond Geuss, it is argued that the progressive planner should direct agents toward an acknowledgement of the motives compelling them to become invested in biased discourse, and how these discourses satisfy these motives by capitalizing on the trappings of habitual modes of reasoning and thriving on the ambiguity of referents. The value of this perspective is illustrated in an analysis of neoliberalism as a contemporary hegemonic discourse. It is discussed how popular anxieties about social mobility and community power motivate the investment in discourses characterized by a thesis of the inevitability of neoliberal restructuring and associations with narratives on entrepreneurialism, multiculturalism, and self-help.

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