A scene from superhero movie 'Guardians Of the Galaxy' in which Chris Pratt's Star-Lord shows the middle finger to the camera during a prison scene. From ancient Rome and Greece to modern road rage incidents, the middle finger has transformed from a crude sexual insult into a global symbol of defiance. How did "flipping someone off" come to provoke such strong reactions worldwide? — Photo: Handout
British neurologist John Hughlings Jackson once said that the first man who insulted another person instead of "knocking out [their] brains without a word" actually laid the groundwork for civilization.
An insult can often feel like a sudden, painful slap to the face. But if you also show the middle finger, it can push some people into a full-blown tantrum.
Obscene hand gestures and vulgar puns permeate all areas of life – from supermarket checkouts and road rage situations to everyday conversations.
Social media comment sections are especially rife with crude gestures, often expressed through emojis and inflammatory remarks.
In certain contexts, a middle finger gesture can serve as a political statement or express clear anger or frustration.
However, in some countries, it is regarded as a punishable non-verbal offence.
Insulting police officers or other drivers can lead to significant trouble in Germany. The Criminal Code states that making offensive gestures, such as showing the middle finger to another road user, is a criminal offence
It can result in a prison sentence of up to one year or a hefty fine.
A Bavarian court slapped a driver with a €5,000 fine (RM23,372) for giving the middle finger to two police officers operating a speed camera. He wasn't even speeding.
The gesture is a legacy of Roman-Greek antiquity and is said to have been used in discourse by well-known philosophers.
This is what Reinhard Krüger writes in his book with the fitting title The Middle Finger - A Short History of an Effective Gesture (Der Stinkefinger - Kleine Geschichte einer wirkungsvollen Geste).
About 2,500 years ago, the Greeks developed the phallic symbol with the hand to insult, mock and provoke each other. For both them and the Romans, the hand gesture represented an erect penis and was understood as a sexually-associated threat.
The Greek philosopher Diogenes of Sinope, one of the founders of Cynicism, is said to have shown the middle finger to visitors to Athens who asked about the celebrated orator Demosthenes and shouted: "Here, you have your demagogue!"
According to Krüger, the Romans knew the hand sign in their language as "digitus impudicus," or the "impudent finger."
While raising the middle finger today clearly expresses a defiant "piss off," historians suggest that in Roman times, it was considered a particularly crude and provocative sexual insult.
The outstretched middle finger is not known everywhere in the world, or at least it wasn't in the past, writes Krüger.
The Germanic tribes may have adopted the gesture as early as antiquity if they did not already have something similar. With the expansion of Greek and Roman culture, the movement also spread further.
With transatlantic globalization, it is believed that the gesture was introduced to the New World by Italian immigrants to North America in the 19th century, and subsequently reintroduced to Europe from there.
Through global media such as cinema and music, the middle finger became a symbol of a rebellious lifestyle worldwide.
Country music legend Johnny Cash became world-famous as a rebel in 1969 with this gesture during his concert at San Quentin State Prison in California.
German Linguistics Professor Ellen Fricke of the Chemnitz University of Technology, calls flipping the finger a symbolic gesture, meaning that it has a fixed and generally recognised meaning.
Other such gestures include the okay and victory signs.
Giving someone the finger has since become an integral part of the modern repertoire.
It can be seen in music videos in the rap and hip-hop scenes and is shown by angry drivers – whether deliberately or by reflex.
Fricke explains that while primates are no strangers to dominant displays, they haven’t quite caught on to the art of the giving the middle finger.
"Primates do not perform depictive gestures, but primarily ritualised, action-imitating gestures."
Perhaps someone just needs to show them how it's done. – dpa
