Sydney Morning Herald
www.smh.com.au
Profile: Raimond Gaita
Photo: Drew Ryan
By Lucinda Schmidt
May 17, 2006
The philosopher and writer finds much light amid the dark.
"My life seems so blessed with luck." Raimond Gaita, one of Australia's foremost moral philosophers, is commenting on a life that - certainly now - seems fortunate.
He spends six months a year in London, lecturing at King's College, and six months living in Melbourne, supervising postgraduate philosophy students and researching at the Australian Catholic University.
His most famous book, Romulus, My Father, is being made into a film, starring Eric Bana as Romulus and directed by Richard Roxburgh, while themes from another book, A Common Humanity, are being used for a cinema-length documentary on torture.
Gaita's childhood, however, was not blessed with luck in a conventional sense. Just after his parents arrived in Australia from Germany, when Gaita was four, his mother ran off with another man, then committed suicide aged 30, after suffering for years from bouts of what was probably manic depression.
Two years after his mother left, Gaita's father, Romulus, also went mad (although he later recovered) and Gaita was brought up by a family friend, Hora, in a spartan timber shack in rural Victoria, with no electricity or running water. The closest neighbour was a vagrant, Vacek, who lived in the boulders near Gaita's shack and ate food pickled in his own urine.
Gaita, 60, has vivid memories of being left alone overnight in the shack, aged five or six, while his father worked the night shift at a factory. He would go to bed cuddling his dog, Orloff, a greyhound cross, sparking a life-long love of dogs. "The place used to creak like mad. I don't think I would have survived my childhood without my dog," says Gaita, who is still getting over the death of his beloved German shepherd, Gypsy, two years ago.
"In many ways it was a very painful childhood, but because my father was such an incredibly good man, and so was Hora, I feel no bitterness towards my mother."
It was his childhood experiences, described in Romulus, My Father, that set him on the path to moral philosophy. Gaita started out studying psychiatry, but found it too focused on science rather than the issue that really concerned him - an understanding of human life.
That interest has spawned books, essays and speeches on topics ranging from reconciliation, genocide, torture and the war in Iraq to morality in politics and the plight of universities.
At present Gaita is working on three books, "clearing the decks" to begin writing what he describes as his "big book", on philosophy, morality, social theory and politics. The first book, on torture, was prompted by his concern that some in the West argue the threat of terrorism is so great that the absolute prohibition on torture should be relaxed.
The second, a memoir, tracks Gaita's intellectual and moral development, weaving in stories of people who have been influential at all stages of his education, from primary school to postgraduate level.
The third is a book of political/philosophical essays, expounding one of Gaita's central tenets - that every human life is precious.
It was a lesson he learnt from his father and Hora, who never treated the vagrant, Vacek, any differently to anyone else.
In that sense, Gaita's tough childhood was indeed blessed, instilling in him a deep desire to live a decent life. "Always, no matter how dark the times, there will be some people who redeem those times by their integrity."
THE BIG QUESTIONS
Biggest achievement Having the wife I do, Yael, and the children [two daughters and two stepdaughters]. That's worth more than all the books.
Personal philosophy To always take people as they come.
Best advice Martin Winkler [a Ballarat teacher and mentor] told me: "You know what social responsibility is? It's one person responding to another, being responsive to the needs and reality of another."
Attitude to money My wife said to me just this morning: "Your father was a wonderful man who taught you many things but he didn't teach you how to handle money."
Best investment I bought this house in St Kilda in 1985, when nobody wanted to live here. And my house in the country [near Maldon] has been a good investment, financially and emotionally. Every time I'm there, I don't know how many times a day, I feel utterly spiritually nourished.