(For linguists only, probably, this one)
First, we
had Humboldt’s Problem, then Plato’s, then Descarte’s, then Broca’s.
Along the way, there was Orwell’s Problem.
Now we have Darwin’s Problem.
I have been
a card-carrying generativist for over twenty years—though I have to confess
that I stopped paying the (figurative) dues somewhere around 1998—and remain
reasonably loyal to the general spirit of the program. Yet I have to ask:
“Why (the [your favourite expletive here]) is
it always somebody else’s problem?”
As the
father of a pre-teen, the prospect looms of hearing this rhetorical
ploy on a near-daily basis (albeit the ‘owners’ of my son’s problems are likely
to be more humble souls than the Greatest Figures in Western Thought, namely,
his parents, his teachers, his siblings, his school-friends, in that order).
Coming from a petulant adolescent, it is something I suppose I have to thole;
but as an escapable part of mature generativist discourse, this stock device is
wearing my patience pretty thin.
Or is it
just me (my problem)?
PS. Don’t
get me started on the shameless misappropriation of Kepler, Galileo and
Einstein in other acolytic work.
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