Progressive makes lots of sense in conjunction with prohibition! The temperance-movement types were generally women -- politically disenfranchised (I mean, literally, at first) with a burning desire to induce social change and betterment. Don't look at an axis of permissiveness vs. repression here; look at the underlying utopian themes in both temperance and modern progressivism. Both are strongly about imposing a particular moral vision on society in service to utopian ends -- ie in order to progress toward some imagined better future state -- even if the specifics of the moral vision differ.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-24 08:55 pm (UTC)