Ben Carson: Prisons prove being gay is a choice

a reply to: tothetenthpower

Good golly! I can accept that a man can choose to have sex with another man, but that is not the same as sexual orientation. And either way, prison is not a 'normal' environment in which to study behaviour, it is a good environment to study deviancy perhaps, even sexual deviancy. I do know at least one woman who thought she was gay, went to work in a prison and met the 'right' guy there. Swears she's straight as a die now So, I suppose I could conclude, if I was to be totally narrow minded about it, that prison turns you into a raging heterosexual.

Love the Sterling Archer avie

a reply to: tothetenthpower

We all know there is a great divide between common sense and so called "book knowledge" Dr. Ben regardless of his great feats as a neurosurgeon seems to be able to erase all of those accomplishments by using this example, if he was truly trying to make an academic statement, surely he may found some better data to back that up, also it seems that the pecking order "no pun" in some prisons have easily put the weak at the disadvantage of having choice when the main vehicle or object of power in prison is rape.

He is mixing apples and oranges and it is quite unfortunate had this been a question for an exam to make a point, it would obviously fail for the lack of being able to fully prove the point with scientific evidence.

I usually do not touch these subjects but how do you for individuals that know nothing about gender who at very young ages obviously either show mannerisms and also social disposition to attracted to the opposite sex, it would seem as a scientist or rather medical professional he seems to forget these data sets and exclude it from the incarcerated data set, but are those individuals gay? or some other category? it seems that in the prison setting for some the choice is not in their hands to be raped and violated.

We can divide things into the masculine and the feminine, we know that we can use drugs and hormones to physically control sex, now is there some unknown about hormones ? or some other variables than purely choice? just my thoughts, seems like an academic scholar could have made much more of an educated or scientific argument for his point.

a reply to: tothetenthpower

How do these fools get past the filters?

I ask that in all seriousness.

uuuuhhhhh...... though I am certain it happens, I do not think I have ever heard of anyone who was straight before prison, but gay when they came out.

Man on man sex does not happen in prison because the participants are gay, but because you have a large number of aggressive, violent, young, testosterone loaded men who have no access to female sexual partners. This doesn't just happen in prison, but in any situation where you have a group of men in their prime completely cut off from access to women. Those males who are smaller, physically weaker, and more feminine looking, become substitute women, and it is probably extremely rare that those chosen as "women" fulfill their roles willingly. In a homosexual relationship, you have two men attracted to each other, who respect each other's role in their relationship, having willing sex. In prison, you have aggressive, oversexed straight men who live in a strict hierarchy of power, and those who play the role of the "man" or "wolf" are considered superior and in charge of those who are the "women" or "punks". The wolves do not respect the punks, but use and abuse them, and pass them around like property. These same "wolves", if they get out of prison, are way more likely to go looking for women upon release and remain sexual with women outside prison. Those who are punks, when they get out, sadly, are often scarred and extremely traumatized, and sometimes even have difficulty with their sexuality, because of the rape and abuse in prison. But they don't suddenly turn "gay". Far from it. They end up hating and distrusting other men as a result.

So it seems the Republican's really have no intention of jumping off the crazy train and joining 21st century earth with the rest of us. Well, good luck with that whole next election thing in states with populations of more than 40.

There are three types of Homosexual inside Prisons.
1. Prisoners who are Homosexual before they were convicted.
2. Prisoners who become Homosexual during there stay in prison.
3. Prisoners who only have Homosexual sex whilst in prison.

Rape within prison (UK ones) is rare, btw. Most sex in prison is concensual (though against the rules) although condoms are free.

a reply to: tothetenthpower

Although I don't want to reply to this thread because it may "quantum-physicslee" somehow attract more of that "lifestyle-choice" of people towards me but I must say that yes, it is a choice that depends upon one single action: rubbing thy prostate gland with your finger or other object.

I don't do this. Good for them that they officially proved what we science believers knew all along.

originally posted by: Asynchrony
a reply to: tothetenthpower

Although I don't want to reply to this thread because it may "quantum-physicslee" somehow attract more of that "lifestyle-choice" of people towards me but I must say that yes, it is a choice that depends upon one single action: rubbing thy prostate gland with your finger or other object.

.

Wait....what?

So what happens when you rub your prostate? And what kind of object are we talking about here.

Exactly what kind of "Science believer" are you....Inquiring minds want to know!

originally posted by: olaru12
Wait....what?

So what happens when you rub your prostate? And what kind of object are we talking about here.

Exactly what kind of "Science believer" are you....Inquiring minds want to know!

Ummm....ya, and does it require another person or can you do it by yourself???

Just for curiosity sake of course.....

a reply to: tothetenthpower

My gosh, by now most people studied in neurosciences, systems theory, psychoanalysis, and gender study understand, that in a sense, if were going to be completely truthful, homosexuality is "kinda" a choice, but it's a choice in the same sense that someone is shy, or anxious, depressive, or cheerful.

These different responses to life, which we often take to be "hardwired", ARE NOT genetically encoded, at all: being gay is NOT genetic, and if any heritable factors seem involved, as family studies indicate, they must be involved at the 'somatic' level of the cell, that is, at the epigenetic level (in Chromatin and RNA structure), and not in the DNA structure itself.

Why do I say this? Because, seriously, anyone with SUFFICIENT self awareness - that is, someone who has an acute sense of the relationship between somatic, emotive, and cognitive processes in consciousness - probably well realizes that Freuds contention that we are all fundamentally "bi-sexual" is basically true.

Evolution only supports a sexual striving in the human organism; it is not particularly "object oriented", that is, predisposing male towards female an vice-versa; rather, these object-relations seem to be a developmental consequence of early interactions where 'meanings' are formed, first along gender lines (the psychological sex we come to identify ourselves with) and then eventually sublimated at puberty by sexual attractions.

Saying this is not akin to saying "being gay is choice". Being gay is a choice as much as suffering from developmental trauma is a choice. That is, people who experience the "stress" of being gay (or having sexual attractions to the same sex) have a very anxious/ambivalent history with their gender identity (most have these issues, but all) and thus, experience intense negative affect when confronted with a gender category they are supposed to feel sexual attraction towards.

Psychoanalysis indicates that homosexuality oftentimes is facilitated by gender issues (not experiencing yourself as "manly" enough, or "girly" enough) which then become complicated, and ultimately, energized, by anxious/confused attitudes about preferring partners of the same sex.

To make this clearer, it is HARD, and DIFFICULT, to regulate sexual attraction when sexual attraction has become "enwebbed" within an entire history of semantic, emotive, and somatic levels of experience.

The issue, is political. Politically, I think it is idiotic to assume you can tell someone else which sex they should be hooking up with. It's not that people can't have their own views - but rather, the sheer inefficacy of changing someone else simply by excoriating or berating someone else. If someone wants to change, they have to want to. And if they don't want to, you do not have any right to tell them to do it, especially when homosexuality a) causes no harm to anyone else b) is enjoyed by both parties c) at an intersubjective level, doesn't seem to have any negative effects on the raising of children or on the more generalized moral sense of the larger society.

To restate again, human sexuality isn't merely 'animal', that is, geared at a genetic level towards sexual arousal, but, as bonobos show (a super sexualized primate which sometimes engages in homosexual activity) mind contains enough open-endedness to allow a variety of sexual attractions, cause, as bonobos show, sexual pleasure can be a means to cement bonds, and, thus, improve survivability.

In acknowledging bisexuality, I am of course cognizant of that potential capacity within me; but, seeing my larger orientation, the one I've most cultivated and the one I feel most comfortable with - heterosexuality - is what I've come to desire most, I don't bother developing homosexual desires.

But make no mistake - and I no doubt am under no illusion that plenty of guys (mostly guys) will vociferously deny the presence of same-attractions - you only think of yourself as completely "bereft" of those feelings because you have never engaged in any imaginative experimentation towards it.

Lastly, at the brain level, an area in the anterior hypothalamus - interstitial nuclei 3 - shows dimorphic differences in size between heterosexual men and women, with gay men closer to the smaller women's INAH3, and gay women closer to the larger mens.

Just as with other experiments in neuroplasticity, such as the study on cab drivers and a part of their hippocampus, as well as studies on soldiers with PTSD, when the mental situation changes, so does the physical neurobiology. This is a basic staple of neuroscience. The only reason you don't hear neuropsychologists discussing this - the malleability of sexuality - is simple: political correctness. And, of course, they do not want to help the homophobe/evangelicals in their quest to force people to abide by dogmatic religious beliefs.

Im sure someone has said this already but Im glad Carson can "choose" to be gay but not all of us feel that way. I knew a kid that carried a pocketbook since he was 2, yes he is gay and a rich lawyer now, I don't think the pocketbook was a conscious choice but an innate one just like sexuality.

originally posted by: Astrocyte
a reply to: tothetenthpower

These different responses to life, which we often take to be "hardwired", ARE NOT genetically encoded, at all: being gay is NOT genetic, and if any heritable factors seem involved, as family studies indicate, they must be involved at the 'somatic' level of the cell, that is, at the epigenetic level (in Chromatin and RNA structure), and not in the DNA structure itself.

Hi. Layman here. So that I understand this clearly, can you please clarify a bit? My understanding is that DNA will give us the base programming which can then be executed with various flags, being the epigenetic markers. Is this correct? If so, wouldn't this degree of flexibility in the form of parameters still be limited to the base code which is being executed? Guess what I'm getting at is that it takes everything, including the DNA, for this to come into existence, and you can't honestly choose one over the other when dealing with the complexity that is human behavior. Is my understanding incorrect?

Lastly, at the brain level, an area in the anterior hypothalamus - interstitial nuclei 3 - shows dimorphic differences in size between heterosexual men and women, with gay men closer to the smaller women's INAH3, and gay women closer to the larger mens.

Just as with other experiments in neuroplasticity, such as the study on cab drivers and a part of their hippocampus, as well as studies on soldiers with PTSD, when the mental situation changes, so does the physical neurobiology. This is a basic staple of neuroscience. The only reason you don't hear neuropsychologists discussing this - the malleability of sexuality - is simple: political correctness. And, of course, they do not want to help the homophobe/evangelicals in their quest to force people to abide by dogmatic religious beliefs.

It seems you'd like to make a case here that the changes in structure follow the choice in function, they no doubt feed into each other, but isn't the most intellectually honest approach to conclude we don't have all the causative flows figured out yet?

Wow good job Anaana , You did some work on this piece. An asset to ATS

a reply to: pl3bscheese

My understanding is that DNA will give us the base programming which can then be executed with various flags, being the epigenetic markers. Is this correct? If so, wouldn't this degree of flexibility in the form of parameters still be limited to the base code which is being executed? Guess what I'm getting at is that it takes everything, including the DNA, for this to come into existence, and you can't honestly choose one over the other when dealing with the complexity that is human behavior. Is my understanding incorrect?

Ok, it's important to be specific when we talk about DNA. DNA codes for explicit things like a body plan. But the mind - especially the human mind - has all sorts of open-endedness. To think that someone has a specific gene for a specific thought, or a specific preference, like the color pink, or a specific sex, like males or females, is already far beyond the scope of evolutionary adaptedness: it does no good for reproduction success to be "frozen" one way or the other.

Since this is a pretty deep subject, and you seem knowledgeable enough to know what it is I'm talking about, one could well argue, paradoxically enough, that DNA "enables" dispositional freedom for the human mind, in that, reflexive consciousness permits executive use of attentional orientation, that is, at any moment I can "move" my attention. For the brain, where attention goes, so does neurological processes: and the human frontal lobes, unlike in any other organism, has fibres that literally run into every area: throughout the cortex, the subcortex, and even into the brain-stem (explaining wondrous feats of Yogis, for example). Information is biderectional, and yes, this is the situation.

Evolution does not deal with mental object relations: the mental 'world" supervenes, with its own specific lawfulness, upon the biological, which in turn supervenes upon physical matter.


You know what evolution cares about? Survivability. So long as an organism adapts and survives, it's function becomes hardwired. Sociality seems to be what pushed human cortical evolution (particularly of the fronto-temporal regions), which is not suprising, since reflexivity, language, self, narrative - i.e self talking to self as we speak - all emerges from an intrsubjective context with other selves. Evolution just enables this: we aren't likely to find any 'specifics' as some cognitive neuroscientists seem to expect, but generalized, and versatile modes of being which permit cognitive adaptation for the organism to its SOCIAL (supervening) environment.

It seems you'd like to make a case here that the changes in structure follow the choice in function, they no doubt feed into each other, but isn't the most intellectually honest approach to conclude we don't have all the causative flows figured out yet?

I don't think so. I think it is more plausible to extrapolate from examples in which we know, without any shadow of a doubt, that neuroplasticity follows mental change.

Neuropsychotherapy, Neuropsychoanalysis, and other fields which integrate the change process of psychotherapy with neurological imaging studies, has given us pretty much no reason to doubt that deep mental change (usually of the right hemisphere, which is more deeply connected with subcortical and brainstem areas i.e areas which mediate sexual feelings) results in neurobiological changes in the relevant brain areas.

There's a very, very rich literature in this area: this being my particular area of academic focus (at the UofT), so I feel, for me anyways, it is a very sound hypothesis that probably wont ever get explored until things simmer down around the politics of homosexuality.

You know, surely, that evangelicals and others will exclaim "told you so!!" if neuroscientists/psychologists did compregensive studies of this, and so, do we really want to do that? The issue, simply put, is not just their dogmatism, but moreso their more generalized tendency to dissociate feelings of femininity (in their pursuit of their 'split' minded society, where dominator/submitter models rule relational patterns, aligned along male/female gender lines) which is also their sheer disregard of social forces on minority groups (i.e blacks, latinos, poor, mentally ill etc) and their bizarre belief that the 'trickle down economy' model is more rational (even though it requires more assumptions, particularly positing some nebulous process where money gets funneled down, easy squeezy) thus motivating their libertarian politics.

Most scientists are liberals, ergo, most neuroscientists, although probably aware of the implications of neuroplasticity for sexual preference, would likely prefer not to help the bible thumpers in their ideological proselytism.

originally posted by: Astrocyte
a reply to: pl3bscheese

I don't think so. I think it is more plausible to extrapolate from examples in which we know, without any shadow of a doubt, that neuroplasticity follows mental change.

Well, I'd like to challenge this reasoning as being representative of the whole truth. Neuroplasticity does follow mental change. This doesn't meant this is the only way in which neuroplasticity can arise. Circumstance can happen to an individual outside of their psychical control, which facilitates the cascade of effects which lead to neuroplasticity. The ways in which neuroplasticity is successful for an individual to adapt to a given situation is limited by genetic factors as well. I don't think even yourself would argue that anyone could be of the same caliber of genius as well... most people we assess to be "geniuses" .... if only they put in the same efforts.

For example, take a coach of Russian athletes a generation or so ago. They took thousands of high level athletes and attempted to mold them with rigorous training. Many broke. I do mean physically, not only psychically. This would likley be due to genetic reasons, everything else being more or less the same. Same training, same general environment, different results. You could say the same of people in a variety of situations which are asked to perform at a high level. Only so many will not break, despite a solid will among many.

Taking this towards the examples you've choose, we can conclude to have seen results only from those who did not break. Those who did not have limitations to their potential for neuroplasticity in the ways which were required for them to adequately perform their task for extended periods of time. What of the would-be cabbies who quit due to not being able to adapt?

Neuropsychotherapy, Neuropsychoanalysis, and other fields which integrate the change process of psychotherapy with neurological imaging studies, has given us pretty much no reason to doubt that deep mental change (usually of the right hemisphere, which is more deeply connected with subcortical and brainstem areas i.e areas which mediate sexual feelings) results in neurobiological changes in the relevant brain areas.

No doubt, but this doesn't mean all too much when considering my above reasoning.

There's a very, very rich literature in this area: this being my particular area of academic focus (at the UofT), so I feel, for me anyways, it is a very sound hypothesis that probably wont ever get explored until things simmer down around the politics of homosexuality.

Ah, well from an outside observer of the academics, it seems pretty easy to conclude that those who focus in on a study, will have bias towards their merits and ways of viewing reality within the current paradigm over other approaches. Nothing wrong with that, but it does seem universal.

a reply to: pl3bscheese

Well, I'd like to challenge this reasoning as being representative of the whole truth. Neuroplasticity does follow mental change. This doesn't meant this is the only way in which neuroplasticity can arise. Circumstance can happen to an individual outside of their psychical control, which facilitates the cascade of effects which lead to neuroplasticity.

Brain chemistry is remarkably complex. Presumably, I think it would be fair to say that all humans have the same suite of neurons and glia, that is, end up with the same "kinds" of brain cells.

Some people believe, others are skeptical, that brain size also affects intelligence, reasoning on the grounds that the more neurons you have, the more brain power you can have.

But this, I don't think, can account for the types of differences. From what we (developmental neurobiology) have learned, genetics seems to control arousal level by offering variants for different neurotransmitters; dopamine and serotonin are both important neurotransmitters which induce arousal and regulation of neuronal action potentials, the latter giving the 'burst' of activity, and the latter allowing regulation of activity. Both of these genes have been associated with interactionist models of gene x environment. A certain environmental input will "stress" people with different variants at different thresholds. Someone with the DRD47R version of dopamine is more sensitive, yet if he receives positive feedback, will develop a 'strong' psychological effect (thus, the allele which produces more dopamine can be either very good, or very bad, dependning on the context). Jay Belsky believes evolution embeds these differences in neurotransmitter producing genes as a way to adapt to differing circumstances (unpredictable vs. predictable environments). But he's speaking from a strictly selectionist perspective. From an adaptational perspective, it appears that the experiences of the mother during gestation invades the placenta (through molecules such as cortisol) which in turn could guide genetic processes (personality may be governed by 'soft-evolution' processes, influenced by the immediate environment of the mother, and not natural selection.)

Taking this towards the examples you've choose, we can conclude to have seen results only from those who did not break. Those who did not have limitations to their potential for neuroplasticity in the ways which were required for them to adequately perform their task for extended periods of time. What of the would-be cabbies who quit due to not being able to adapt?

I've gone through this process - or this type of discussion - so many times before. It's what happens when people from two different worlds talk to one another. lol

In order to truly appreciate the relationship between body and mind, you would be helped by reading psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, just so you can get a sense of how exquisitely subtle human relationships are.

As said, the body does contribute certain processes which have to be worked with - such as genes which produce a neurotransmitter in greater amounts - but this only controls 'arousal'. Human beings have built-in processes - the unconscious - which govern the body, the emotions, and the mind. Prof. Allan Schore - the so-called American Bowlby, has transformed modern understandings of the affective brain and has played a huge role in turning psychoanalysis into a respectable field again.

The issue is simple. The 'holistic' right hemisphere is deeply enervated by the diencephalon and the brain stem. In Brain history, the brainstem takes precedence as it is the most basic - evolutionarily old - and fundamental aspect of animal survival. All higher ability 'receive' from the brain stem

It is thus through the brain stem and the limbic system that the 'attentional processes' of the human mind (cortex) receives input. When we are on automatic, brainstem and limbic systems run mental functioning in predictable and easy ways. Certain inbuilt motivational systems (resulting from Human/primate/mammalian evolution) interact with environments, and the body-mind responds. Implicit relational information - looks on faces, tone of voice, gesturing of body - take precedence in arranging our mental states to executive cognitive functions. Even in the case of the latter, there remains a 'delay' between initial experiencing and the reflective 'mapping' of what was experienced.

Thus, if therapy is not conducted properly (with respect to implicit relational knowing; the human need for safety, avoidance of negative affect, and thus a dissociation from ideas/concepts/experiences that associate with negative affects) then you will merely aggravate the problem.

So why, then, do some people succeed and others not? You would need to locate those responses not in genes, but in their relational history: in the meanings they've formed and the way they come to experience situations, based upon how they've experienced themselves in previous similar situations. Since brain development - right hemisphere - grows 100% in the first year of life, early relational dynamics - how your parents helped regulate your affect arousal - stay with us throughout life (minus intensive psychotherapy). In order to 'correct' dysregulation in the brain-mind system, it helps to work with the information (meanings) which play such a big part of it's dynamics.

Ah, well from an outside observer of the academics, it seems pretty easy to conclude that those who focus in on a study, will have bias towards their merits and ways of viewing reality within the current paradigm over other approaches. Nothing wrong with that, but it does seem universal.

I don't think anyone world be more aware of that then a psychoanalytically trained student of the mind-brain.

Do you deny that society influences our behavior? As far as I think, the single deepest field of human inquiry seems to be neuro-psychoanalysis. Understandably, opponents of psychoanalysis have resented their claim to 'absolute knowledge'; and they also disregarded its claims as being 'psycho-babble' - "not scientific" because the mind is a 'black-box'. Neuroscience has changed that, and thus, some of the biggest names in neuroscience - Damasio, Ledoux, Panksepp - are aligning themselves with psychoanalysis.

The brains structure and function corresponds very well with neuropsychoanalytic theory. The unconscious is the "right brain". The vagal system and reticular formation induce 'dissociation' when a negatively tagged 'object' relational becomes 'known', instantaneously depressing activity in the nucleus ambiguus (which enervates the face, larynx, pharynx, and the right hemisphere i.e. is what Steven Porges calls the "social engagement system") by activating the dorsal vagal nerve (which lowers heart rate) and so turning off the higher cortical functions (constricted blood flow to the higher brain etc). Next time you "daze out", think about that - how your vagus nerve has cut off blood flow and electrical activity in your right hemisphere (and thus the left, as they work together in the act of cognition).

Neuropsychoanalysis gives legitimacy to the fact that emotions are more primary in human mentation, and so, without being properly aware of all the different ways emotions influences attention (particularly through shame and anxiety).....

...you are liable to be led by semantics (the meaning contents) and not the affective undertones in the background.

Hence, without being "doubly aware", "standing in the spaces", to use the term of the psychoanalyst Philip Bromberg, you are at risk of enacting a dissociated affect (the way someone affected you in what they said).

Obviously, this is REALLY hard, and so without a history of practicing this (zen monks show incredible left-hemispheric activation, as well as global synchrony, when meditating during a fMRI) you won't be very attuned to the subtleties involved.

Back to my point: given the lower brain is so richly connected with the right frontal cortex, there is every reason to believe that the mind can regulate its sexual attractions towards different sexes.

The real amazing thing is, how someone could be skeptical of this, whilst even more incredibly, yogis and monks regularly perform feats previously deemed "impossible" but today is regarded as scientifically valid.

Where connections exist in the brain, the capacity for awareness exists. I know, if you're a student of genetics, it will be hard for you to think of the mind as 'free' from the influence of genes, but this is exactly how you need to think - open minded - if you are to pay attention to the evidence, and not be sidetracked by the emotional dissonance of recognizing something else (the mind) as possessing a lawfulness that need not reference genes. For people who come to this field, as human beings, they frequently get lost in the semantics (what they're thinking) instead of what they're feeling.

Emotion, of course, plays a vital role in the act of perception.

Oops!

Ben seems to be backtracking.

a reply to: Astrocyte

To answer a direct question, of course I think society influences our behavior. A wildchild will develop vastly different than a socialized child.

I was not aware the right brain was the "unconscious" aspect of the psyche. Are left-handed individuals somehow more aware than right-handed? Or a first question might be more appropriate, is there evidence which suggests left-handed people are right brain dominant, and might their left brain become the "unconscious" psyche?

I still think you're holding weight towards your focus. It's also important to inform you that I don't necessarily disagree with your observations, rather think you may be leaning towards judgments that are not fully supported.

I caught some of that on T.V.

Needless to say, I was rather stupefied.

As others said, whenever you have sexually hyperactive, and aggressively dangerous men put in prison for life, or decades, their only hope of sex will be with another man. And not even all of the men who suffer that fate end up doing it in the first place. They have no other remaining options. It's either have sex with a man (probably often forced.) or never have sex again. It's not so much about romantic/intimate relationships which actual homosexuals have. It has more to do with your absolute last resort. And if that's not the case, It's more of a power grab and a way of imposing humiliation/intimidation. It has everything to do with dominance.

If men and women shared co-ed prisons, this problem would probably vanish. Maybe not completely, but small enough to where you could barely even notice. Although I'm quite sure you would see a pretty huge spike in the male-female rape occurrences. Which is obviously why men and women are separated.

Does nobody take into consideration that there are men who go to prison and were already homosexual? Or maybe even considered bisexual? Surely that in and of itself would explain some of the reasons why this happens. Where is his evidence that suggests straight men go into prison straight, and leave gay afterwards?

I'm heterosexual, and I have yet to wake up one day and decide it's time to go and be homosexual. For anybody who truly believes that homosexuality is simply a choice, how about you go and prove me wrong. If you've always been attracted to women, change your mind and settle for men the rest of your life. It shouldn't be too hard of a task. Go try it on for size. You may actually be pleased with the results based on your logic. What a bunch of lunacy. How could anyone buy into this? More importantly, why did they bring this dumb-dumb on T.V. in the first place? Please tell me it was to laugh at his ignorance....

originally posted by: rupertg

Seems you made his point. He lived though it and used what was given him to move beyond it.