Learning from experience

I have just recently come across a section in last weeks Big Issue, a magazine that supports homeless peoples issues. I noticed a kind reader quoted me from the book 'The Rules of Chaos'.  The quote is that Ideology is where people go in to avoid learning from experience.  The reader applied my quote to the nature of capitalism.

The truth is if only capitalist would learn from experience, the future might look better. Alas, hardly any body learns from experience.  Of course powerful people are the worst.  The rich and the powerful tend to feel invulnerable and they think that they do not need to learn anything from experience or the past, but everybody holds dear what they believe in and they do not let facts distract them.

So to understand what is happening, we should not leave out considering the flaws of human nature.

Power and Plenty

The problem with banker’s bonuses is not only that it is highway robbery, but that it encourages a sense of invulnerability, irresponsibility and self-indulgence – as the conduct of bankers clearly shows. The banks were run far more efficiently and responsibly l when executives weren't making that kind of money. 

These guys earn enough in a single year to keep them going for life, so what do they care? They have the freedom to indulge themselves in all sorts of costly ways – costly to their shareholders, their customers and the taxpayer. The whole of history demonstrates a basic weakness of human nature: the combination of power and plenty not only corrupts, it makes people stupid. Exceptions prove the rule. Far from motivating bankers to do their best, the government tempts them to do their worst.

The John Terry trial and the infantilization of the UK

I can think of nothing more ridiculous than the present trial of John Terry. It reminds me of the trial of a student demonstrator -  at huge expense to taxpayers. The student was on trial for calling out an insulting remark to a mounted policeman. The student hurled at him  the accusation that he had sex with his horse, or some similar juvenile jeer, and the mounted policeman sued the student for hurt feelings. He wasn’t a two year old baby, for God’s sake, whose whole development was endangered by some nasty insult but a mounted policeman. People are losing their jobs, their homes because of the financial crisis, and this is what the country has money for?

As for John Terry and Anton Ferdinand. If John Terry had tripped Anton Ferdinand and Ferdinand had tripped and broken his foot, and Ferdinand would have been unable to play for six months or more, Terry would have got no worse punishment than a red card, and it oqwuld have been the end of the whole business. But left unhurt, this strong and tough grown man, an athlete, is not ashamed to testify in open Court that he is plunging the administration of justices into a needless expense of tens of thousands of pounds, not to mention the wastet on his own lawyers which must amount to about a hundred thousand. Football is becoming ever more brutal, players get away with more and more infractions of the rules. It would be better for the game, the skill of the players – and for the manners of football-mad hoodies - if the rules of the game were rigorously enforced instead of worrying about the players’ hurt feelings.

I date legal support to enshrine infantile sensitivity in grownup people to the time when Muslim organizations have been pressing for a new law making derisory remarks about anyone’s religion a criminal offence. Much of the argument for a new criminal offense was that religious people’s feelings would be hurt. The House of Lords Committee invited submissions on the issue. In my submission I quoted the rhyme that every child used to learn in school:

Sticks and stones

will break your bones

but words will never hurt you.

This was the drift of the majority of submissions and The House of Lords Committee advised against criminalizing the criticism and insults to believers. No legislation was ever passed, but greedy lawyers managed to create a new offense, bleeding the state, as well as their clients. Now people are convinced that it is their human right not to have their feelings hurt. No wonder we are in all sorts of trouble.

Why Andy Murray lost

I believe that Andy Murray didn't win Wimbledon because he doesn't seem to have been trained in the technique of breathing while playing. He has a magnificent spirit, skill, strength and great determination which justifies all the enthusiasm and admiration he inspires. But tennis players need the right breathing technique just as much as opera singers. I remember the great Italian baritone Titto Gobbi teaching a young singer in a Masterclass how to breathe while singing, telling him that the technique has to be so perfect that he can do it without thinking of it, just like normal breathing. You certainly have never noticed Tito Gobbi breathing. You didn't notice Roger Federer breathing either while he played, while Andy Murray kept grasping for air. Once he learns the technique of breathing during a match, he will be able to beat everybody. I also think that putting all a player's strength into his serves can be overdone. There is no advantage in wasting so much energy hitting the ball (half the time into the net)and then lose easy shots because the player is tired.

Seasonal Greetings and my lecture in Madrid

I am sorry, but I am so keen to finish my new novel I haven't written a blog for a while; but I went to Madrid in November to speak at a conference on writing and the protection of intellectual rights - the protection of the rights of writers. My speech was reported in El Mundo in the 18th November 2011 issue. My Spanish readers, or readers who speak Spanish, can look it up in "News and Reviews" on my website. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all friends! Stephen V

a wonderrful performance in a pub

By chance I found myself in the Dolphin pub in Sydenham, just as they were about to start the matinee performance of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. I looked at the programme and I didn’t see a single name I had ever heard of. The last time I saw the play was at the National, directed by Peter Hall. I must confess I found that production immensely cumbersome and boring, in spite of Judi Dench as Lady Bracknell. I was seized by curiosity to see how Wilde would fare in an outer borough of London.

I intended to leave in the interval, but couldn’t. I was amazed, thrilled. I could never have imagined I could see a better performance of the play in the back garden of a pub in Sydenham than in the National, but this was the case. The director, Jonathan Kaufman, had a perfect sense of timing, and rhythm and so did his actors The play flew along as a smoothly and at such speed as a symphony in the hands of a good conductor. The actors were all young, full of energy, passion and intelligence – they made Wilde’s wit sparkle in every sentence. It was a fast performance, yet nothing was lost. I was particularly struck by the actress playing Gwendolen, Rosalind Parker, Joseph Attenborough (Algernon) and Tom Franck (Jack Worthing)– but, with a single exception, they were all good.

This brilliant production shouldn’t be playing in the garden of a pub in Sydenham, but at the National or at the West End. Each performance would be sold out and all these young actors would be famous.

Stephen Vizinczey

A revised and amended Truth and Lies in Literature in Kindle.

I haven't been in my blog for ages - you either write your books or blog. But to those of you who are interested, there is a new edition of "Truth and Lies in Literature" published as a Kindle book.I discarded some of the original pieces which did not seem to meet the test of time. This Kindle edition includes most of the pieces in the previous printed editions, but none of them are simple reprints. All the pieces underwent some alterations. Every time they were translated for a foreign journal or for a foreign edition, I looked them over to see whether they could be improved and whether anything new that I had learned about the subject should be added. As I have said all too often, I am not so much a writer as a re-writer; I don’t revere my old mistakes, my old ignorance, or my incomplete thoughts.


To the revised versions of the pieces which were printed in the original 1983 and 1985 and the 1990 printed editions, I added "The Anatomy of Serious Rubbish or the Bay of Pigs of the American Literary Establishment" - and several essays whichappear here in English for the first time. Among these are “The Power Of Literary Criticism” and my foreword to the French edition of Mark Twain’s Autobiography, arguing that Mark Twain’s later works far surpass his celebrated boyhood novels, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. I demonstrate, I hope, why Mark Twain remains the most important American writer to this day, a giant of world literature. My Stendhal essay includes now 30 years of constant study.