After watching the "9 1 1" terrorist attack that shocked the world, thousands of innocent lives were destroyed. World public opinion unanimously condemned this inhuman evil, but a large number of people in China cheered for it.
Faced with this cold fact, it is very necessary to trace the hidden social and psychological reasons behind it and its relationship with nationalism. I think nationalism can be divided into two kinds: healthy and morbid. Healthy nationalism faces the world and the future; Pathological nationalism is narcissistic and backward-looking.
Healthy nationalism promotes a nation's self-improvement, while morbid nationalism leads to a nation's suicide. Pathological nationalism has four characteristics: seeing scars as medals, narcissism and xenophobia, long eyes in the back of the head and belligerence. After the "9 1 1" incident, not all domestic reactions were schadenfreude, and a group of intellectuals publicly issued statements condemning terrorist crimes.
Influential newspapers and periodicals in China, such as Caijing, Window to the South and Southern Weekend, have published articles condemning terrorism. For example, all the colleagues in Caijing magazine called on all races, all societies, different nationalities, different societies and different civilizations in the world to unite in the face of the evil hostile to all civilizations!
The international observer of Southern Window magazine wrote: Terrorism not only challenges a certain government, but also challenges the basic values of human society. Americans today, Russians, French, Egyptians, Brazilians and China tomorrow. In the face of innocent souls, the theory and truth of terrorists are very narrow, pale and barbaric. The "9 1 1" incident gave the whole world a clear common enemy: terrorism.
On the other hand, those "applauding people" rarely express their opinions in their real names, and there are not many people who tell the truth and reason. Online is mostly anonymous. This obviously opposite phenomenon may indicate the division of China people.
Although it is not certain that people in both camps are nationalists, at least they all consider themselves patriots. The differences lie in what patriotism is, what country you love, which comes first, human rights and sovereignty, and what attitude you take towards basic values such as freedom, democracy and justice.
Finally, I think "healthy nationalism" will advocate that human rights are the first value and human rights are above everything else; However, it is "morbid nationalism" to advocate that (national) sovereignty is the first value and sovereignty is above everything else.