SOCIAL PLANNING AS SYMBOLIC PRACTICE: TOWARD A LIBERATING DISCOURSE FOR SOCIETAL SELF DIRECTION

What is the place for personal agency and a morally legitimate civic order in a world of technical calculation? The historically recent opposition between systems management and personal agency and dignity is placed in context. “Technicism” is defined as an ideological extension of technical thinking to inappropriate domains and discussed in relation to positivism. The implications for social planning are discussed in detail.