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Magdeburg, “the Great Replacement” & conspiracy theories: OffG’s informal debate with Simon Elmer

Catte Black

Just before Christmas the OffG eds (mainly myself) had what proved to be an interesting exchange with our erstwhile regular contributor Simon Elmer on X/Twitter. We think the discussion is quite relevant on many levels so we are reproducing it here. (NB – the exchange was public and can still be seen on X).

The discussion began when we posted the following…

To which Elmer replied thusly…

We had just turned down an article Elmer had sent to us on the subject of “replacement immigration”, and so we responded with the following…

He replied with…

More of this type of generic ad hominem was made, including a bizarre claim that he sent us the article to “test” us (hubris much?), but we won’t include any more. If you’re interested you can follow the thread here. However things became more interesting when “An Inquisitve Englishman”  offered this observation…

To which Elmer responded…

OffG replied…

Elmer replied…

OffG replied…

Elmer did not reply to this, but he jumped back into the original thread to post this apparent non sequitur  (there had been no previous discussion of what our readers believe)…

We replied…

Elmer responded..

Ok.We didn’t bother to remind Elmer we had read the article, which was how we knew we didn’t want to publish it, but we did take a careful look at the “solutions” he advocates, in case we had missed something important. His solutions consist solely of proposed legislation to be adopted in the event the ruling elites become sympathetic to Elmer’s point of view. You can read them here in full.

Having done due diligence we replied…

Simon did not reply to this post. So, we followed up with another question about his proposed solutions…

He has not replied to this either.

Instead he began posting seemingly random accusations and commentary to and about us which in no way were responses to anything we had actually said. For example…

We did point out to him that we have NEVER defended open borders or proclaimed “refugees welcome”, have NEVER expressed any opinion on the nature of Islam or made a priority of “defending” it.

However he either didn’t notice our replies, or – again – chose not to respond. If he should notice our replies or change his mind about responding, and if he can find any examples of us advocating for the things he claims we will of course give him space here on OffG to correct us.

That was essentially the conclusion of the discussion.

Why we think this exchange is worth repeating here is what it tells us about the utility of binary narratives to those who seek to control public opinion and discourse.

Such narratives are often intentionally created or at least encouraged, and tend to be tuned to specific fault lines and prejudices already present in society. They will often be built on and feed off very real or at least understandable fears and concerns.

I think their basic purpose is to limit acceptable debate to simple binary polarities which leave most important questions unanswered and ultimately forgotten. Like the impoverishment of language in 1984, it’s about narrowing discourse and thereby narrowing thought itself. Instead of analysis we are given a simple choice – on/off, yes/no, good/bad.

Is Trump a fascist or a hero? Was covid a bioweapon or a naturally occurring deadly plague? Is Russia good or evil? Do we deplore Islam as incompatible with British values or do we  believe our borders should be wide wide open?

No middle ground please guys. No shades of meaning. Nuance is strictly for the uninitiated and morally questionable.

I think the final aim is to make us  – all of us – more gullible, easier to bamboozle, confuse and control.

Does it work?

You must be the judge.

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Categories: Fake Binary, latest, OffG