etymology request: any body got anything better than this. the name of an LA coffeehouse ?

anything to do with this other fifth?


- bill 9-09-2005 4:58 pm

I remember the Fifth Estate from the hippie days in Detroit. It was a John Sinclair/White Panther organ. I’ve still got a copy somewhere, including the lyrics to “Just Like an Aborigine” by the Up, who succeeded the MC5 as the official Panther band. I saw them play at a 5th Estate sponsored rally circa 1971.

If you looked up 1st, 2nd 3rd, or 4th Estate you’d have found the origin. Carlyle added the press as a 4th Estate to the traditional 3 divisions of the Estates-General; the 5th Estate was a conceit of revolutionary-minded folks in the mid 20th century to define their place in the social structure.

- alex 9-09-2005 5:39 pm [add a comment]


thanks. but their not connected, right?
- bill 9-09-2005 6:55 pm [add a comment]


I’m not sure if there’s any connection between 5th Estate and 5th Column. The ultimate origins are separate, but there may have been a pun implied: that the 5th Estate is a sort of 5th Column which could undermine the country from within, but that it had the legitimacy of an Estate-General, at least in the minds of people who felt that their “revolution” was justified. I’m not sure who came up with 5th Estate; I didn’t know about the coffee house name, but that’s my guess as to their anarchic thinking.
- alex 9-09-2005 7:45 pm [add a comment]





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