The Enemies of Progress: Dangers of Sustainability

by Austin Williams

This polemical book examines the concept of sustainability and presents a critical exploration of its all-pervasive influence on society, arguing that sustainability, manifested in several guises, represents a pernicious and corrosive doctrine that has survived primarily because there seems to be no alternative to its in effect, its bi-partisan appeal has depressed critical engagement and neutered politics. It is a malign philosophy of misanthropy, low aspirations and restraint. This book argues for a destruction of the mantra of sustainability, removing its unthinking status as orthodoxy, and for the reinstatement of the notions of development, progress, experimentation and ambition in its place. Al Gore insists that the 'debate is over', while musician K.T. Tunstall, spokesperson for ‘Global Cool’, a campaign to get stars to minimize their carbon footprint, says ‘so many people are getting involved that it is becoming really quite uncool not to be involved’. This book will say that it might not be cool, but it is imperative to argue against the moralizing of politics so that we can start to unpick the contemporary world of restrictive, sustainable practices.

Genres: Politics, Technology, Economics

120 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2008

About the author

There is more than one author with this name

Austin Williams is director of the Future Cities Project. An architect and project manager by profession, he was the technical editor at the Architects’ Journal; architecture critic on BBC London; and transport commentator with The Daily Telegraph. He is now the architectural producer of NBS Learning Channels and author and illustrator of “Shortcuts”.

Reviews

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

this book drove me NUTS! even aside from it being poorly edited. :)

on one hand, he's got a perfectly good point, and one worth scrutinising no matter what your environmental opinions are: the rhetoric of some eco-warriors is heavily moralised and quite extreme. (to take the example of the head of PETA: if you want to take one long-haul flight per year, you better sterilise yourself, be carless and go vegan to offset your carbon emissions.) the extremes of it make the issue all very much about guilt and justification, and understandably puts people off of the smaller things they could do to be more eco-aware. clearly everyone sterilising themselves would defeat the planet-saving purpose. but clearly if everyone owned a bike and used it as much as possible, or ate less meat ... yeah, there are levels.

another point i took to well was that the attitude of some environmentalists borders on neo-colonial: 'god forbid all the indians and africans decide they want SUVs like us.' in a global warming sense - yikes indeed. in a paternalistic, white-man's-burden sense - yikes even more.

but he insists that sustainability has 'won' the debate and has 'neutered' politics. he hammers the same point repeatedly and it was less convincing every time: once we've pegged humanity as the villain against the environment, humanity can never be the solution. um ... what? so we're only capable of movement in one direction? and apparently the concept of sustainability closes off human creativity and innovation. um ... how?

writing this book was a matter of trawling around for extreme rhetoric he disagreed with and crafting oppositely extreme rhetoric to throw back at it. along the way, he misses some amazingly large points.

re: the neo-colonial issue - surely the glut he so encouraegs in the west is fed greatly by the fact that the developing world does not have the same options. surely something's got to give if there are going to be superhighways covered in SUVs all over the globe.

the hardest thing to swallow about it was his insistence that this was not a matter of global warming, simply the rhetoric around it and the way eco-warriors use it. a cop-out if i ever heard it. he was insistent that our ethos should be human-centric, and that to place the earth's needs above ours is self-defeating. maybe i've bought into the crazy eco-rhetoric, but how can you really separate the two? mr. williams, you have left me at a loss.

[Bryan Alexander · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an incredibly cranky book. I disagreed with something on every page - yet I appreciate it for two things it accomplishes.

Williams' thesis is that our contemporary drive for sustainability - ecological sustainability, mostly in the context of climate change - will massively demolish human quality of life. Throughout the book he targets efforts to shift away from fossil fuels, to reduce methane emissions, to reduce humanity's hob-nailed bootprint on the world, and finds them degrading nearly everything we tend to value about existence. Individual freedom, development, pleasure, health, security, and more all face certain decline if not collapse when Greens, climate activists, and others try to revolutionize civilization.

I found this thesis undone constantly. Time and again Enemies of Progress underplays the damages caused by technologies and practices he values. Repeatedly he identifies tech and practices as delightful, without acknowledging that such pleasures are not universal, nor admitting their costs. For example, his paeans to personal cars would have delighted Detroit in its glory days, but he has little time for noting human injuries and death, sheer ugliness, the awfulness of dull commutes, and, of course, environmental costs. Williams also works from the assumption that climate activism rules the world, which it, ah, does not.

At this point you might ask "Bryan, if it's so wrong, why three stars?" Good question. I mentioned two things I appreciated, so here they are.

1: the book is compulsively readable. Williams writes in a fury, yet always grounded with details and references. It's very accessible and clear, even when (I think) wrong. Points for style.

2: the book does a useful job of identifying strands of thought within sustainability. There is a hair shirt element, which shines forth most extremely in neoprimitivism, but appears in quieter elements as well. I think this stems partly from human psychology: the desire to control our surroundings, feeling overwhelmed at a crowded environment. It also depends on religious belief and its cultural heritage: Christian denial of the body, notably.

There is also a progressive refusal to admit good things in the world. You can see this in some antiracist politics, which draws forth legitimate horrors from history, but skips over progressive steps. In sustainability there's a view that modern civilization creates a series of terrible things, yet that view downplays astonishing achievements, from extended lifespans to booming knowledge.

So: a useful at times, always fierce little book.

[Lion]

There were people who warned us 15 years ago.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Poorly written ideas.... no back up for his thoughts.... more to come.