Writers: The Fifth Estate

The Press

The term fourth estate was coined centuries ago in reference to the press and is enshrined in the First Amendment of our Constitution along with the freedom of speech and the right of the people to assemble. Now, in this third decade of the twenty-first century, all three of those freedoms are under attack—especially the press. Consider the recent 60 Minutes debacle along with CNN and The New York Times being called “fake news,” and the intent is clear: cut off one of society’s legs and its other civil structures will fall.

The Printing Press

In the United States the first, second, and third estates refer respectively to the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government, but in medieval Europe the estates referred to, in hierarchical order, the clergy, the aristocracy, and the common classes.

The idea of a fourth estate, i.e., the press, didn’t come about until the invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century. As that technological advance spread throughout Europe and the rest of the world, it had the power to change society with the written word.

In 1517, the press afforded Martin Luther the luxury of printing enough copies of his Ninety-five Theses to tack them on the doors of Roman Catholic churches throughout Wittenberg, Germany. Luther’s one-page document brought a large part of the Catholic clergy to its knees for reasons other than prayer. Seeing the church rocked by the written word frightened the aristocracy and, then, just as now, compelled kings and those in power to control what was printed and read by the common classes.

Two hundred sixty years later, Thomas Pane’s forty-seven-page pamphlet Common Sense put a thorn in the British monarchy’s side. Common Sense was the subversive chapbook of its day and one of the driving forces behind the American Revolution.

The People’s Press

Fast forward another 250 years and new technologies are creating thorny issues for politicos on both sides. The internet has become a megaphone for all the people. Sites like Substack have become a forum for writers. Moreover, self-publishing technologies have given rise to independent voices. Not unlike Pane’s self-published pamphlet, these voices may serve as a fifth check on the government’s attempts to silence free expression. Meanwhile, with the wealth of knowledge stored in cyberspace, books like 1984, Fahrenheit 451, The Bluest Eyes, and other works the government deems objectionable may be pulled from library shelves, but they will always be available somewhere online.

The Final Press

We, then, my fellow writers, are the new Fifth Estate. It is with our independent thoughts and words online and in print that we may keep the current tide of censorship at bay. In the previous sentence I use the word tide with its sense of ebb and flow. Throughout history, governments have attempted to silence critics. The recent affronts against late night comedians are akin to condemnations put upon Lenny Bruce and George Carlin when censors labeled them as “indecent.” Yet both of them fought back with their spoken words.

Written words—more subtle and, sometimes, less public—also have had the ability to raise red flags above hidden dangers in society. Consider the aforementioned works of Ray Bradbury or George Orwell—Bradbury’s story addressed book banning and Orwell’s 1945 novel Animal Farm used livestock to make a laughingstock of the hierarchy in authoritarian states. Ten years later, William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, exposed the corruption of the British class system in the guise of a band of adolescent boys stranded on an island. Fortunately, or perhaps not, they’re rescued just before they go completely feral.

So, it is our Fifth Estate’s duty—no matter what schemes are devised to suppress our freedoms—to tell the truth with our words. More often than not, it’s easier to express the quiet part out loud in prose or poetry: fictionally through aliens, haints, or beasts lurking in the darkness; satirically with skits a la SNL; poetically as Richard Blanco or Amanda Gorman have done at two inaugurations.

To twist an expression borrowed from Shakespeare—Write on!