You may be asking yourself what atavism is. Is it a new terrorist organization? An urban street gang? Perhaps a new drug that threatens to corrupt our society from the inside out? The answer is fundamentally simpler than these other complex issues, yet it is one that has plagued mankind since the beginning.
In biology, atavism refers to an organism that displays traits or characteristics from its ancestors.
Atavism Applied to Criminology
Cesare Lombroso was an early (1870’s) criminologist in Italy who had some interesting ideas about where crime originated. He took atavism from other modes of study and applied it to criminology. Lombroso harvested this idea to explain crime and criminal behavior. As our societies have evolved, we have become more civilized.
The Atavist was someone who reverted back to their ancestral, savage ways. Imagine the primordial caveman taking whatever they needed to survive, by any means, without consideration to a creed or code, and you have the atavist in a nutshell—violence incarnate. The idea may fall short of a holistic answer to the concept of crime but it was light years ahead of previous ideas like Phrenology, that told us criminals could be identified by the shape of their skulls, set of their eyes, and other physical characteristics.
Recently a man in a hospital was caught on camera beating nurses with a pipe. His goal seemed only to inflict as much damage as possible. Whether this was a mental snap of some kind or he intended his actions, I saw in him the atavist.
Consider all the active shooter situations we’ve seen recently: inside our schools, shopping malls, in the workplace, atavism rears its ugly head. It has no religious or political affiliation, it’s simply violence for the sake of violence. It is a grim reminder of our ancestry..
Confronting Atavism Today
This leaves the modern warrior to face atavism and confront it. To be perfectly clear, there is no reasoning, no negotiating, and no rationalizing that can stop atavism. You’ve heard the saying ‘the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.’ Richard Grenier, paraphrasing George Orwell in a 1993 Washington Times article said:
“… people sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”
Those “men” now include women too, but the struggle is still the same. So how do we combat atavism?
1. Planning
Unfortunately, you can’t predict the violence. Anywhere people gather is potentially a target for the atavist. Step one is planning. If you’re out and about, know your closest exit at all times, make note of good cover, and always carry a firearm you are proficient with. At work, create a plan with co-workers.
For unarmed staff, use the concept of RUN, HIDE, FIGHT — run from the attacker, escape the situation. Hide if you cannot run, and fight as a last resort. Armed personnel take a more direct approach of stopping the threat. Either way, a plan in place can help to eliminate the need for critical decisions that cost time in emergencies.
2. Training
Planning is a wonderful first step and it gets people thinking about the possibility of an atavist in their environment. However, training makes the situation more realistic. During training we learn of problems that we haven’t foreseen and we’re able to solve them. It’s always better to learn about an issue in an exercise than during a real-time event where lives are potentially at stake.
Train with the plan you created, and improve the plan based on what you learned. Think about the plan from the atavist’s point of view and evaluate the plan’s weaknesses and strengths. Training also applies to the individual.
As modern warriors, we need to train and be ready to swiftly and accurately react when an atavist appears, bent on destruction. Resolve yourself mentally for what you must do.
3. Mitigation
When you know something is likely to happen, you can plan for it, and train for it. Now take it to the next level: how can you make the mission of the atavist more difficult? Many people are familiar with the concept of hardening a target. It is sometimes more difficult a practice in a civilized society with certain freedoms guaranteed, but it can be done.
Consider access to a building, think about deterrents. These could be as simple as a better door, security card access, or a camera system. On a personal level, a heightened awareness can serve as a mitigating factor. Too often we make it easy for the atavist to strike.
4. Response
You have planned, trained, and mitigated. If an atavist should strike near you, all you have left to do is work your plan. Remember that time is of the essence. The more time the atavist stands unchallenged, the more damage they can do. Closing and engaging with them will sometimes cause them to stop themselves — the main goal is stopping the threat. Act swiftly and directly.
5. Review
There are a number of ways review can assist you. If you are involved in an incident with an atavist, took a long, hard, look at it afterwards. Assess what was done well and what could have been improved upon. Make note of these takeaways and roll them into your future planning, training, and mitigation.
Learning vicariously is a critical skill that is certainly applicable in this setting. Take some time to review situations other jurisdictions have dealt with. Learn the lessons they learned and improve your own situation. Sadly, there are too many incidents across America to learn from.
Atavism seems to be a growing trend we as modern-day warriors are forced to deal with. Some would contend that our penchant, our familiarity, and our affinity with violence marks us as atavists ourselves. But ours is a higher purpose. We save lives. We stand in the gap between the wolves and the sheep, and at times are forced to use violence to serve that purpose.
