Atavism (pronounced at-uh-viz-uhm)
(1) In biology (most often in zoology & botany), the
reappearance in an individual of characteristics of some (typically) remote
ancestor which have not manifested in intervening generations.
(2) An individual embodying such a reversion.
(3) Reversion to an earlier or more primitive type (a “throwback”
in the vernacular).
(4) In sociology and political science, the recurrence or
reversion to a past behavior, method, characteristic or style after a long
period of absence, used especially of a reversion to violence.
1825-1830: The construct was the Latin atav(us)
(great-great-great grandfather; remote ancestor, forefather” (the construct
being at- (akin to atta (familiar name for a father) and
used perhaps to suggest “beyond”) + avus (grandfather, ancestor) + -ism. The –ism suffix was from the Ancient Greek
ισμός (ismós) & -isma noun suffixes, often directly,
sometimes through the Latin –ismus &
isma (from where English picked up
ize) and sometimes through the French –isme
or the German –ismus, all
ultimately from the Ancient Greek (where it tended more specifically to express
a finished act or thing done). It
appeared in loanwords from Greek, where it was used to form abstract nouns of
action, state, condition or doctrine from verbs and on this model, was used as
a productive suffix in the formation of nouns denoting action or practice,
state or condition, principles, doctrines, a usage or characteristic, devotion
or adherence (criticism; barbarism; Darwinism; despotism; plagiarism; realism;
witticism etc). Atavism & atavist are nouns, atavic, atavistic &
atavistical are adjectives and atavistically is an adverb; the noun plural is
atavisms.
The primitive Indo-European awo meant “adult male relative other than the father”, the most
obvious descendent the modern “uncle”. The
English form was influenced by the French atavisme
(the coining attributed usually to the botanist Antoine Nicolas Duchesne (1747-1827
Paris) and was first used in biology in the sense of “reversion
by influence of heredity to ancestral characteristics, resemblance of a given
organism to some remote ancestor, return to an early or original type”. The adjective atavistic (pertaining to
atavism) appeared in 1847, joined three year later by the now rare atavic (pertaining
to a remote ancestor, exhibiting atavism).
Atavism (and its related forms) are none of those words which can be
used as a neutral descriptor (notably in botany) or to denote something
positive or negative. Although the core
meaning is always some “past or ancestral characteristic”, it tends to be pejorative
if use of people or human cultures reverting to some “primitive characteristics”
(especially if they be war or other forms of violence. In the vernacular, the earthier “throwback”
has been more common than the rather formal “atavistic” although the circumlocution
“skip a generation” is often used for traits that occur after a generation of
absence and “throwback” anyway became a “loaded” term because of its
association with race (in the sense of skin-color).
Medicine has constructed its own jargon associated with the
phenomenon in which an inherited condition appears to “skip a generation”: it’s
described often as “autosomal recessive inheritance” or “incomplete penetrance”.
While the phrase “skipping a generation”
is not uncommon in informal use, the actual mechanisms depend on the genetic
inheritance pattern of the condition. Autosomal
Recessive Inheritance is defined as a “condition is caused by mutations in both
copies of a specific gene” (one inherited from each parent). This can manifest as an individual inheriting
only one mutated copy (which means they will be a carrier but will remain asymptomatic)
but if two carriers have issue, there is (1) a 25% chance the offspring will
inherit both mutated copies and express the condition, (2) a 50% chance the offspring
will be a carrier and (3) a 25% chance the offspring will inherit no mutations. Thus, the condition may appear (and for
practical purposes does) skip a generation in those cases where no symptoms
exist; the classic examples include sickle cell anemia and cystic fibrosis. Incomplete Penetrance occurs when an individual
inherits a gene mutation which creates in them a genetic predisposition to a
condition but symptoms do not develop because of environmental factors, other
genetic influences or “mere chance” (and in the matter of diseases like those
classified as “cancer”, the influence of what might be called “bad luck” is
still probably underestimated, and certainly not yet statistically
measured. In such cases, the mutation
may be passed to the next generation, where it might manifest, giving the appearance
of skipping a generation and the BRCA1 & BRCA2 mutations for (hereditary) breast
cancer are well-known examples.
Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December, 2011.
In political science, “atavism” is used to refer to a
reversion to older, more “primitive” means of furthering political ends. Although it’s most associated with a critique
of violence, political systems, ideologies, behaviors or economic policies have
all be described as “atavistic” and their manifestation is linked often with
ideas presented as representing (and implicitly offering a return to) a
perceived “golden age”, a past structure which is idealized; it appear often as
a reaction to change, notably modernity, globalization, or what is claimed to
be a “decline in values”. Political
scientists identify stands in nominally non-violent atavism including: (1) Nostalgic Nationalism. Nationalist movements are almost always
race-based (in the sense of longing for a return to a “pure” ethnicity in which
a population is “untainted” by ethnic diversity. It’s usually a romanticization of a nation's
past (historically, “purity” was less common than some like to believe)
offering the hope of a return to traditional values, cultural practices, or
forms of governance. (2) Tribalism and Identity Politics. A call
to primordial loyalties (such as ethnic or tribal identities), over modern,
pluralistic, or institutional frameworks has been a feature of recent decades
and was the trigger for the wars in the Balkans during the 1990s, the conflict
which introduced to the language the euphemism “ethnic cleansing”, a very
atavistic concept. Tribalism and
identity politics depends on group identities & allegiance overshadowing
any broader civic or national unity on the basis of overturning an artificial
(and often imposed) structure and returning to a pre-modern arrangement. (3) Anti-modernism or Anti-globalization. These
are political threads which sound “recent” but both have roots which stretch
back at least to the nineteenth century and Pius IX’s (1792–1878; pope
1846-1878) Syllabus Errorum (Syllabus
of Errors, 1864) was one famous list of objections to change. The strategy behind such atavism may be identifiably
constant but tactics can vary and there’s often a surprising degree of overlap
in the messaging of populists from the notional right & left which is
hardly surprising given that in the last ten years both Donald Trump (b 1946;
US president 2017-2021; president elect 2024) and Bernie Sanders (b 1941;
senior US senator (Independent, Vermont) since 2007) honed their messaging to
appeal to the same disgruntled mass.
Austrian political economist Joseph Schumpeter used the word “atavism” in his analysis of the dynamics which contributed to the outbreak of World War I (1914-1918), something he attributed to the old, autocratic regimes of Central and Eastern Europe “dragging the modern, liberal West” back in time. Schumpeter believed that if commercial ties created interdependence between nations then armed conflict would become unthinkable and US author Thomas Friedman (b 1953) in The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization (1999) suggested the atavistic tendency of man to go to war could be overcome by modern commerce making connectivity between economies so essential to the well-being of citizens that no longer would they permit war because such a thing would be so dangerous for the economy; it was an attractive argument because we have long since ceased to be citizens and are merely economic units. Friedman’s theory didn’t actually depend on his earlier phrase which suggested: “…countries with McDonalds outlets don’t go to war with each other” but that was how readers treated it. Technically, it was a bit of a gray area (Friedman treated the earlier US invasion of Panama (1989) as a police action) but the thesis was anyway soon disproved in the Balkans. Now, Schumpeter and Friedman seem to be cited most often in pieces disproving their theses and atavism remains alive and kicking.
