ABSTRACT
The sustainability question bears, in the first instance, on the issue of whether or not and how the technologically based economy sustainable in the face of what presented environmental constraints. There are the less than heavenly philosophical questions concerning the historical and philosophical background of sustainability, the immediate origins of the concept of sustainable development, and relations between sustainable development and its near neighbors. Only against a background one begin to appreciate the fundamental critiques of sustainability. The historical and philosophical background against which the idea of sustainability has emerged can be indicated by contrasting it with two different theories about the basic character of historical change. History is fundamentally either cyclical or progressive. Progress, in turn, can be either toward a perfect future or away from an imperfect past. It is important to the backward-looking or escapist theory of progress entails a stigmatization of the past, a past inherently less than able to defend itself.
