The 17-year-old acknowledged that the incident triggered powerful responses, but he cautioned that more focus should be put on the victims of the attack.
By Rick Noack Rick Noack Foreign affairs reporter focusing on Europe and international security Email Bio Follow March 25 at 7:46 AM The heroes honored after terrorist attacks are usually first responders, who rushed to the scene to rescue lives.
During his first interview on Australia’s Network 10 on Monday, Connolly acknowledged that “what I did was not the right thing to do.” Connolly may have been shocked by his sudden fame, after what appeared to be a more or less spontaneous idea in response to a tragic event. But researchers who have studied how human brains tend to react to terrorist attacks were probably less surprised. Prior research focusing on the 2011 right-wing extremist attack by Anders Breivik in Norway — considered a role model by Christchurch attacker Brenton Tarrant — showed that terrorism often has a cross-border psychological impact.
While traumatic disorders among observers who watch coverage of terrorist attacks abroad remain rare, the Danish study backs up decades-old evidence for a much broader impact of such attacks than we often realize. “Terror Management Theory,” Christopher R. Long and Dara N. Greenwood wrote in a 2013 study, “posits that human awareness of the inevitability of death can lead to potentially paralyzing anxiety.
The two researchers also argue that humor can help observers “infuse the random chaos and suffering of everyday life with significance.” In the case of the Australian senator, observers may have applauded what they saw as a justifiable public embarrassment of a politician whose anti-Muslim ideology has been condemned for encouraging right-wing extremist ideologies and for potentially radicalizing extremists.
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