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The Rhetoric of Sustainability: Perversity, Futility, Jeopardy?

Author

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  • Meg Holden

    (Urban Studies Program, Simon Fraser University, 2nd Floor, 515 W. Hastings Street, Vancouver, BC, V6B 5K3, Canada)

Abstract

In 1991, development economist and American public intellectual Albert O. Hirschman wrote the Rhetoric of Reaction [1]. In this book, which was prescient of more contemporary popular books such as Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine [2] and James C. Scott’s Seeing Like a State [3], Hirschman proposed a way to understand the kinds of arguments made by conservatives about proposals for change. His compelling trilogy of modes of arguments included arguments of perversity, futility, and jeopardy. I argue here that this schema can additionally be used as a way to understand the limits that are seen to exist to approaching sustainable development. I will demonstrate the pervasiveness of arguments that our best attempts to move toward sustainability in our cities today may present threats that are just as grave as those of not acting. This exercise serves two purposes. One is to urge those who would call themselves sustainability scholars to think critically and carefully about the lines of thought and action that may separate different sustainability motivations from the far reaches of interdisciplinary work in this field. The other is to suggest that, because of the persistence of certain kinds of arguments about the impossibility of sustainability, suggestive of deep and enduring instincts of doubt through human history, we should be skeptical of the legitimacy of these claims about the limitations of achieving sustainable development.

Suggested Citation

  • Meg Holden, 2010. "The Rhetoric of Sustainability: Perversity, Futility, Jeopardy?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 2(2), pages 1-15, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:2:y:2010:i:2:p:645-659:d:7161
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Adriana Angel & Lissette Marroquin-Velasquez & Sandra Idrovo, 2021. "Dialectical Tensions of Sustainability and Health during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Tale from Latin America," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(13), pages 1-17, July.
    2. Marc A. Rosen, 2013. "Engineering and Sustainability: Attitudes and Actions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 5(1), pages 1-15, January.
    3. Mark Brown, 2013. "A Methodology for Mapping Meanings in Text-Based Sustainability Communication," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 5(6), pages 1-23, June.
    4. Simona Totaforti, 2018. "The Challenge of the Society of the Future: Building Relationships through Human/Nature Design," Annals of Social Sciences & Management studies, Juniper Publishers Inc., vol. 2(3), pages 68-70, December.
    5. Paul Ofei-Manu & Satoshi Shimano, 2012. "In Transition towards Sustainability: Bridging the Business and Education Sectors of Regional Centre of Expertise Greater Sendai Using Education for Sustainable Development-Based Social Learning," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 4(7), pages 1-26, July.
    6. Cavicchia, Rebecca, 2023. "Housing accessibility in densifying cities: Entangled housing and land use policy limitations and insights from Oslo," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).

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