Terminal Velocity
I think my Substack needs a new name
Terminal velocity is the maximum speed attainable by an object as it falls through a fluid (air is the most common example). (From Wikipedia)
This morning I read Margaret Sullivan’s exceptional Substack, American Crisis, and it got me thinking about more than her chosen topic, the persistent failure of legacy mainstream media to stand up for democracy. Sullivan mused at the beginning about how she chose the name of her newsletter, and how in retrospect she is happy with the choice - short, punchy, attention-grabbing.
I don’t aspire to a following as large as Sullivan’s, and don’t deserve it. She is one of the most perceptive social and media critics out there. But I think my Substack needs a new name to reflect this moment - this long, painful, tiring moment - that we are living through. One in which it seems, at least to me, that we have passed through stages of accelerating decline and are now plummeting downward at breakneck speed. One in which corruption, oligarchy, inhumanity, and immorality are plunging us toward oblivion faster than we can react and protect ourselves. One in which the existential threats of climate change, unregulated disruptive technologies, pandemic disease, dehumanizing inequality and even nuclear war are looming above us on all sides. One of greed, greed, greed. Unchecked greed.
The picture at the top - of Trump and David Sacks and Mark Zuckerberg and Melania and Bill Gates at the White House - epitomizes our problem. Maybe an image of Putin or Xi, or of Ukraine or Gaza might be more apt, but I don’t think so. Oligarchy and ruthless exploitation are our problem, and it begins at home. If I had to offer a caption, I would suggest “the banality of evil.”
This is a moment when talk of guard rails seems quaint and naive. Our system has blown past whatever guard rails there were, all swept downward in the slipstream of our descent. We have not yet hit bottom, but we are bracing for impact. The only thing impeding further acceleration is the fluid of our humanity, our numbers, our resistance and decency.
We have reached Terminal Velocity.
It is impossible to maintain a sense of detachment as we plummet into darkness. We need to be engaged, to thicken the fluid through which our system is falling and - with luck, with solidarity, with clarity of purpose - slow and even halt its descent. Physics tells us that characteristics of the falling object and of the fluid - the components of drag - determine the speed of terminal velocity.
The analogy suits our present crisis and suggests what must be done. With enough drag, downward momentum can be broken, the speed of falling can be reduced and ultimately the descent can cease. At that point we can think about what’s next. How to rebuild. How to shift our gaze upward.
We are the fluid. All of us. Everyone here and abroad who wants a better future for humanity and our planet. We need to link arms, to increase drag through solidarity and resistance. To slow down the destruction of our institutions and our lives, to stop billionaires and oligarchs from foreclosing our common future.
I may have gone a bit overboard and given all of this a heroic tinge. It will almost certainly take the form of a million small acts of defiance and solidarity. Actually billions, more billions than all the dollars that Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos and all the other oligarchs have hoarded and used to buy our political system and erode our sense of right and wrong.
Going forward with this blog/newsletter, I will still write about the things I highlighted when I embarked on my Substack adventure a little over seven months ago. Foreign affairs, photography, and anything else I feel an impulse to share. Things I care about deeply. My very first post remains valid.
I also don’t want to imagine that this new name for my Substack will boost my readership - though I wouldn’t mind if it did. Subscription will always be free. I just chose Terminal Velocity to capture the moment as I see it. To sharpen the focus when it seems everything is out of control and moving so fast it’s just a blur. To capture the apocalyptic atmosphere. To amplify the need to resist. The need to focus on what we can do to slow our race toward oblivion, and how we can do it. To share ideas on how we sustain hope.