That giving someone the finger should be consider highly sophisticated and why? Well, it has a long historical tradition. This is what I cut and pasted from Wikipedia’s article: The Finger
The origins of this gesture is highly speculative. It is identified as the "impudent finger" in Ancient Roman writings. It was defined there as a gesture intended to insult another. It has been noted that the gesture resembles an erect penis. Ancient Romans considered an image of an erect phallus as a talisman against evil spells. As a consequence, displaying this gesture to another may not have been a pseudo-sexual insult but rather a insulting statement along the lines of "I’m going to protect myself against your witchcraft, before you even start."