On "Shermanposting"
A Case Study of the Rounded Edge
So, Slavery Bad —Yeah?
Buying and selling human beings, claiming ownership over them and forcing them to work for no recompence is pretty much universally agreed upon (at least in the West) as not being a particularly nice thing. No need to debate that (I hope).
So….also burning, looting and destroying property of non-combatant civilians bad tooo —yeah?
Well….Enter the Shermanposter.
A terminally online person —more than likely born after 9/11, who either just learned about the “American Civil War*” for the first time in history class (if they are lucky and go to a school that does the bare minimum), or —more likely, just learned about it after going down a Wikipedia rabbit hole. These kids are naturally angsty, rebelious, and want to let out their frustrations on the world. Unfortunately, things that were considered “based” circa 2015-2016 like being a wehraboo that totally just likes the uniforms and tanks and nothing more…can now get you unpersonned from polite online society. So, how can one edgy boi of the 2020s properly vent their frustrations online by advocating for something morally and ethically reprehensible while also being seen as virtuous?
Hmmmmmmm….
Well, perhaps if there was some sort of massacre or genocide —or ethnic cleansing that was done to people generally accepted as the bad gu —hey, I just learned about this guy named Sherman…he burned and looted his way through Georgia in 1864 —in a manner that if done in Syria or Ukraine, would be widely condemned by the international community. But hey —this was done to a bunch of slave owning —white, traitors!
Based…
And that kiddies, is how we got here. To the most insufferable and annoying online trend, the Shermanposter.
For reference there is a smaller —but similar trend in relation to Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris and the bombing of Dresden. And Ironically, you won’t see similar trends in regards to the bombing of Japan —or the massacres of Communists in Korea, but I digress.
Some say the “Tankie” or “Wehraboo” are among the worst inventions of the internet —but I disagree. As wrong as they are —it actually requires a pair of testicles to defend (either ‘ironically’ or unironically) the depraved and reprehensible things that both the mid-century Soviets and Germans did. It requires absolutely noooooo courage or fortitude to defend war crimes of victors of 160 to 80 year old wars whose results have been 1) long since decided, and 2) whose victorious factions were —relatively speaking, fighting for what could be seen as universally accepted ethical ends.
Simply put the Union and the Western Allies are generally seen as the “good guys”, the Confederates and the Nazis are the “bad guys.” Very few sane people will argue with you there —especially with the latter.
This is why I say the “Shermanposter” is worse than any Tankie or Wehraboo could ever be. Not just because they are mostly immature teenagers, not just because memes are cringe inducingly lame…but because they (and I’m being serious here) attempt to wrap their craving for violence and debasement in the flag of justice or moral righteousness. “It was okay to burn your way through rural Georgia because they were racist traitors,” or “its okay level defenseless German cities of negligible strategic, operational, or tactical importance, because they were evul Nazis.”
You can see where I’m going with this line of reasoning.
With that kind of moralizing logic one can —and many before us have, justify the most terrifying acts of evil the human imagination can conger. It is a dangerous logic I have heard from —frankly, the weakest most chickenhawked types of people. Many times have I had late night, half-drunk conversation at my local cigar bar with a few NAFO types —who are so venomous in their hatred for Putin’s Russia, and so rigid in their support for Ukraine, that they literally (no joke) advocate for nuclear war —and genocide of a majority of Russia’s civilian population just to ensure victory. And when confronted on the ethics of this, the response I got was “they asked for it when they voted for Putin.”
Anyone who knows me —or have read my works on the topic, should know where I stand on the Russo-Ukrainian War, and should know that I would love nothing more than to see Ukraine wipe the floor with Putin’s Army. But not to that level.
When I look back at the American “Civil War” I do it in an extremely detached manner. I am a Southerner —both by birth and grace of God, and yet my only direct ancestor to serve on the hollowed ground did so at Gettysburg for the Union —a Pennsylvanian Volunteer Regiment. When I put on my own uniform each day —and I pointed this out to a former Training NCO from many years ago, it says U.S. Army —not C.S. Army, and the flag is the Stars and Stripes, not the Stars and Bars —or the cross of St. Andrew.
TL:DR, the war is over —and has been for over 160 years, the result has been decided —no point in rubbing it in, nor attempting to revise justifications for how it started or why your ancestors fought. It is over —plain and simple.
I have tremendous respect for men like Joshua Chamberlain and Robert Shaw —and I cried like a baby when the forces of progress desecrated and defaced Lee Circle by removing the statue of its namesake…or when they melted down his statue that once stood in Charlottesville, or when I laid eyes on the graffiti ridden plinth on monument avenue in Richmond. The whole scene resembling a post-apocalyptic film.
Back home, every morning I would go for a run in the park, and after every lap I would make a loop around the Confederate Monument in the centre of the park.
Why would I do this?
Because I recognize the solitary fact that over 600,000 men died in that war —Blue or Gray, they are all recognized as Americans. No edgy teenager, high on his own sense of self-righteousness, is going to change that. And I felt it is only right to make that loop as a salute to the fallen men from that city —long dead, who took up arms to defend the city I now call home.
The Civil War was fought over slavery —make no mistake about that, and World War II was fought to end the tyranny of despotic regimes (sorry kids, but Germany, Italy, and Japan were neither “Based” nor particularly pleasant places to live —that’s not to say that the Soviet Union or Nationalist/Mao’s China were “good”…they weren’t. But given the choice, America and the West were the preferable option —and I think basic logic would say the result speaks for itself). But if watching shows like Mobile Suit Gundam would teach its audience anything —it is that there are heroes and villains on all sides of conflict. Brutal and evil as the mid-century Germans were, they still produced men like Franz Stigler, Kurt Knispel, Sepp Gangl, or Kurt-Siegfried Schrader. Men whose deeds —if you were to look them up, would count among the most noble and selfless known to man. And yet all of them fought for a regime that would be considered the embodiment of evil to most people.
I could ramble forever, but I would let the above meme speak for me. In the years following the “War Between the States” —a more accurate title, men hailing from the birthplace of the quashed treasonous rebellion answered their nation’s call in the jungles of Cuba and the Philippines, in the muddy trenches of France and Belgium, in the islands of the Pacific, the beaches of Normandy…Korea…Vietnam…Iraq…Afghanistan.
The Janissaries of the American Empire —as another person once said. And wherever they went —as the above meme shows, they carried the flag of their treasonous ancestors. And when they died, they were buried with it.
Not bad for a bunch of racist traitors, huh?