Firstly, for the benefit of Jon and other non-English readers, here‘s a definition of “oik”

oik n. member of the lower classes of the UK—especially anyone not English—e.g. one who tends to pronounce an (i) sound as (oi) UK

Secondly, Norm is both a professor of political thought and a very clear thinker—a dying breed. Today he demonstrates that he thinks more clearly than a lot of “scientists” when he rightly (and modestly) questions the dogma of linguistic determinism—broadly, the belief that the extent of language shapes the extent of thought. It is a fallacy that grows from the vanity of the academy and from its lack of imagination. It’s a kind of establishment solipsism, like the earth-centred universe, historical inevitability, the ascent of man, and vitalism.

Brains process representations of the world and sometimes those representations are labelled with words. When you live in an ivory tower and its walls are lined with dead trees it’s hard to imagine that the marks on the bark in the forests outside can be as real as the inscriptions pressed up against your nose every day.

And another thing. As hard as I try to be frivolous around here, clever people keep visiting PooterGeek and making serious points in the comments sections. It happened with my jokey human cloning post. It happened with my jokey op-ed exam post. This post is serious, therefore I invite Pootergeekers to fill the comments with really bad jokes.