Chomsky’s Atavistic Revolution (with a little help from his enemies)

The Oxford English Dictionary defines Modernism as a “movement characterised by a deliberate break with classical and traditional forms or methods”. This is borne out by examination of how ‘modern’ linguists have routinely established an ironic distance between their own work and what went before. The exception is Chomsky, whose ‘atavistic’ revolution, harking back to putative early modern roots, broke all the rules in terms of the stance one could take toward intellectual predecessors in the wake of modernism. It showed how “a deliberate break with classical and traditional forms or methods” could be brought about by, not ignoring traditional methods, or taking an ironic distance from them, but reinterpreting them with a greater time depth. The ultimate irony lies in how Chomsky’s opponents forced an ironic distance on him, turning him into a mere garden-variety modernist — and by so doing, helped to guarantee the success of his generativist programme. atavism. Resemblance to grandparents or more remote ancestors rather than to parents. modernism. Movement characterised by a deliberate break with classical and traditional forms or methods. revolution. 1. A single act of rotation round a centre. 2. An instance of great change or alteration in affairs or in some particular thing. – Oxford English Dictionary (abridged)