ABSTRACT
If the new right’s radical pessimism has been largely successful in promoting its anti-planning agenda, why has this ‘freedom’ from the ‘responsibility of planning’ been so eagerly accepted? This chapter considers why we often fail or find it difficult to plan, individually and collectively, drawing on fields such as psychology and political science. In this sense, the new right played into some seemingly hard-wired human frailties in thinking about the future. Even so, such barriers to thinking and acting for the longer term are not insurmountable. While it is important that we recognise and navigate the barriers we experience to thinking about the future, there is a danger of over-emphasising these barriers and inadvertently excusing and being resigned to our lack of planning to deal with long-term challenges such as climate change.
