As series commentator, Harvard scholar cites parallels to today

September 25, 2011|By James Sullivan, Globe Correspondent

A man peers from the speakeasy-type peephole in a steel door in a photo from… (Chicago Tribune/File 1951…)

It was a time of unprecedented prosperity, cut down by a stock market collapse and then eclipsed by a long period of rampant joblessness. The national debate featured bitter divides over immigration, religion, and the proper role of government in the private lives of American citizens.

It sounds a lot like our own time, but we’re talking about the era of Prohibition. More precisely, it’s Ken Burns, the AV man for the nation’s ongoing civics lessons, who is talking about it.

“Prohibition,’’ the New Hampshire filmmaker’s latest work - his 25th production for PBS in 30 years - examines the collective impulse to curb the country’s appetite for alcohol and the unanticipated consequences of the passage of the 18th Amendment. Among those consequences: the rise of a national crime syndicate, the demonization of ethnic groups, the widespread corruption of law enforcement officers, and the creation of a huge new class of “scofflaws.’’

For Harvard constitutional scholar Noah Feldman - one of Burns’s recurring on-camera commentators for the series, which airs in three parts on WGBH beginning Oct. 2 - talking about Prohibition was a welcome opportunity to transcend his usual topic: “dry’’ law, as he puts it, pun intended.

“There were obvious parallels to the present day,’’ says Feldman, a Boston native whose work at the intersection of religion and law led to his role as an adviser on the formulation of a new Iraqi constitution. “There was a pretty deep divide in the American public about what was the right way to live.’’

The so-called “culture wars’’ over issues such as illegal immigrants, gay marriage, gun control, and abortion rights have largely defined the political discourse of recent years. But none of them have become quite so consuming as the fight over alcohol was in the 1920s and early 1930s. The 18th Amendment went into effect in January 1920; Prohibition was repealed by the passage of the 21st Amendment in 1933.

With the Founding Fathers’ intentions a continuing source of intense debate, “Prohibition’’ revives fundamental questions about the Constitution, says Lynn Novick, Burns’s codirector.

“What is the Constitution in our society?’’ she asks. “What does it mean to us? Why would we want to amend it, and what does it mean to have a law that nobody follows? Those are the conceptual and philosophical issues the film raises.’’