|
||
|
|
||
| PAPERBACK BOOKS | ||
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A memoir of this ilk treads a difficult
line between objectivity and subjectivity and its author must therefore depend
on critical friends. I am indebted to those who have read
drafts and made suggestions for improvement, particularly Kathy Monro, Peter
Chapman and David Busch. Thanks also to Margaret Miles who
generously and competently assisted in preparing the manuscript for the
publisher and to Kim Preston who provided assistance and inspiration in the
design of the cover. Thanks are also due to those at Zeus
Publications who brought the project to fruition. Above all, the gratitude this endeavour inspires belongs to those who have lived this life with me, and loved me sometimes in spite of the way I have lived it. Obviously they are more significant to this story than the column inches devoted to them throughout the narrative might suggest. FOREWORDS Hon.
Tony Fitzgerald AC QC, Wentworth Chambers, Biography provides a fascinating glimpse
of history based on one person’s experience and perceptions. During Noel
Preston’s lifetime, Australian society has undergone a radical transformation,
so much so that many, especially those of his (and my) generation, resent the
changes that have occurred to the old order and its rigid, but distorted values.
Aided by comprehensive records and a prodigious memory, Noel has recorded his
acute observations of Australian social history in the second half of the 20th
century, especially events in Beyond
the Boundary provides Noel’s unique, deeply
personal, scholarly insight into the significant events of a fascinating era and
his own growth as those events unfolded. Many of those who currently dominate
public discourse would deride him as an elite member of the ‘chattering
class’, although none would dare label him ‘un-Australian’. On the
contrary, his life and work encourage all Australians to the unfashionable
virtues of integrity, ethics and support for the disadvantaged. That is as much
as anyone can do. Rev.
Dorothy McRae-McMahon, former Director of Mission,
Uniting Church in Australia Noel Preston has gathered together an
astonishing collection of facts, memories and stories which make the radical
edge of the social action history of As one whose life journey has borne many
similarities, I was captivated by the way in which Noel has managed to cover so
much important ground in so readable a style. We not only receive a fine
documentation of events and personalities, but a warm and human story which
gives it a three-dimensional feel. As we enter this century, it is important
that the radical records of the past are collected and presented from many
points of view for the future. Noel Preston has made a valuable contribution to
that endeavour. Professor
John Uhr, Noel Preston’s book is a sketch of an
Australian public faith, nicely balancing the public value of impersonal duty in
public affairs with the less public value of personal belief and individual
faith. This is an Australian story of social responsibility, reflecting the
development of a contemporary Australian social ethic seen and experienced from
a talented insider who, thankfully, never got lucky enough to win the confidence
of any political party. Noel Preston’s ambition was always to see it clearly
and say it straight: the intellectual ambition saved him from the pitfalls of
partisanship and the moral ambition saved him from ever becoming the mouth-piece
of the mediocrities dominating Australian public life. An engaging provincial portrait, Noel
Preston’s recollection of a maturing Two
things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the
oftener and more steadily they are reflected on: the starry heavens above me and
the moral law within me. (Immanuel Kant,1788, ‘The Critique of Practical
Reason’) I
have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have
discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that
there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal
a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I
have come. But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom come
responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended.
(Nelson Mandela, 1994, ‘Long Walk to Freedom’) We
stand at a critical moment in Earth’s history, a time when humanity must
choose its future. As the world becomes increasingly interdependent and fragile,
the future at once holds great peril and great promise. To move forward we must
recognise that in the midst of a magnificent diversity of cultures and life
forms we are one human family and one Earth community with a common destiny.
(The Earth Charter, 2000) Others
who have lived through the same period, the transition from late modernity to
postmodernity, from the twilight of the old gods to the secular age in which God
is dead but won’t lie down, will surely recognise something of my experience
in their own. We may not all be in the same boat, but I’m pretty sure I am no
lone yachtsman. (David Boulton 2002, ‘The Trouble with God’ John Hunt
Publishing Co., p.70) As I age I am grateful to find that a silence has begun to gather in me, coexisting with my tempers and my fears, unchanged by my joys or my pain. Sanctuary. Connected to the Silence everywhere. (Rachel Remen, 1996, ‘Kitchen Table Wisdom’, MacMillan) PREFACE One way
we make sense of our lives is by recalling memories. When we forget who we have
been, we lose a true sense of who we are, for memories are the substance of an
integrated life. The literal notion of re-member-ing is significant, conjuring
up the idea of reversing the Humpty Dumpty syndrome, putting our ‘members’
(different parts of our self) back together again. Indeed, remembering (which is
a kind of antidote to self-destructive ‘dis-member-ing’), and reflecting on
our memories, is a necessary step in cultivating a life of integrity. Although it is autobiographical, this book is more aptly understood as a
memoir. More than a collection of interpreted memories, it tells stories within
a story. My account is located within the wider narrative of Overall, my intention in writing this autobiographical reflection is to
identify profound, yet ordinary, issues arising from the human condition –
themes in ethics, politics and spirituality. In this sense this book is much
more than autobiography or social history; it includes certain episodes
previously unexamined on the public record, and is offered as part of a
continuing communal conversation, in effect engaging with the stories of others.
My story overlaps with the stories of thousands of Queenslanders who share my
aspirations for society, many of whom I have known closely as we have joined
together in various campaigns and associations for social change over the years.
I write to honour their stories, though only a few of these individuals are
actually identified in these pages. As a memoir the narrative is inevitably dominated by events in the
public arena. Nonetheless, the intention is to move back and forth between the
public and the personal, authentically probing deeper places and examining
issues about the good life and the just society. As a teacher, media commentator
and sometime preacher, I have chosen to make my contribution in the public gaze.
Sometimes this contribution has been heard, sometimes not. Occasionally it has
made a difference. Some might regard this endeavour as personally self-indulgent, even
self-aggrandisement. I recognise that some public figures abhor the exposure of
their personal lives. For their own reasons many whose personal account might
enrich the public understanding resile from writing an autobiography. Of course,
beyond the official curriculum vitae there is always a sacred story, a story of
the inner self. In my own case, while the record of social activism in the
Bjelke-Petersen era and my subsequent contributions to public and academic
discourse as a public sector ethicist are part of the whole story, they cannot
be understood without some appreciation of the faith formation and ideological
assumptions that characterised my development. These are the foundations which,
in an evolving and sometimes contradictory form, have remained integral to my
self-understanding. Likewise my experience of fatherhood, divorce, my struggle
with intimacy, alongside personal encounters with cancer and serious illness are
critical elements in this reflective narrative. I am acutely aware that someone whose public profile is associated with
declarations and commentary about the ethical nature of others’ behaviour
cannot expect to escape accountability for personal conduct. That said, full and
detailed disclosure of one’s personal life is not always possible, appropriate
or necessary in a work such as this. Nonetheless my intention has been to open
the windows into my personal and inner journey sufficiently to explore
authentically my struggle to live with integrity. Readers should not be
surprised that even those who build their vocation around ethics are not saints
but flawed individuals. What I have written is also a testimony to formative influences. Chief
among them are my father and maternal grandfather, but also, on a bigger stage,
Reinhold Niebuhr, Martin Luther King Jr., and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. These figures
also struggled with the need for congruence between the outer and inner journey,
the public and the private, the expression of a transformative vision for
society alongside a personally sustaining spirituality. As social critics they
were trailblazers who operated with a sense of the interconnection between the
realms of politics, ethics and faith. Fundamentally, they were boundary riders,
not insiders who generally eschewed opportunities to be institutional main
players, though they consistently contributed to, and critiqued the society in
which they lived. In fact it is this idea of ‘the boundary’ which evocatively names
the standpoint and perspective informing the insights and experiences recorded
here. An integrated life requires boundaries: boundaries define us. However,
they may also confine and sometimes must be challenged, disrupted or
transcended. As an ethicist I warm to this imagery of the boundary,
not because it may conjure up images of the boundary rider who enforces the
rules like an umpire. Indeed that is not my idea of how a good ethicist
operates. Rather the boundary image indicates the disinterestedness which mature
ethical reflection involves. That is, the ethical viewpoint requires much more
than reacting from personal interests or feelings. The ethical approach demands
that we step back from a situation (to the edge or boundary) and consider
comprehensively, from a disinterested viewpoint, both consequences and our
obligations – an approach once described as ‘taking the viewpoint of the
universe’. While ‘the boundary’ may be ‘on the edge’, it
is part of the field and remains a vantage point from which we can contribute to
the main game, especially by critiquing and challenging existing boundaries. As
social actors we may appear to others as major contributors in our various
pursuits and yet, from our own individual perspective on the action, we realise
how partial and peripheral our involvement and contribution actually is, though
it is always possible that we exaggerate the estimate of our contribution. My
experience is also that positions taken from the boundary, especially when they
challenge those boundaries, are sometimes rejected outright as the views of
outsiders, or they are treated with scepticism and confusion. Boundary-riders in
society who openly debate widely held political, religious or ethical attitudes
create a certain amount of discomfort in various quarters. The particular boundary traversed in this story lies
between ethics, politics and faith, or the term I prefer here, spirituality. In
general, ethics focuses on what is right, fair, just or good, about how we ought
to live. Not that ethics is aimed at making us saintly. The ethical approach
that has guided me is more concerned with best possible outcomes rather than
perfection. Ethics, therefore, should be applied and practical. That said, I do
not see ethics as a code of rules for behaviour. I am more interested in an
ethical perspective or approach which, like a compass, sets a direction for our
lives rather than prescribes our destination. Furthermore, I make an assumption as ancient as the teaching of
Aristotle, and for which this book provides ample evidence, that ethics and
politics are related symbiotically. If ethics asks how we ought to live together, politics is the vehicle by which we decide
how we are to live together. Politics, as a term, is derived from the Greek polis meaning ‘a city’. Politics therefore concerns us all as
citizens in a community. Consequently, a central concern for politics should be
justice, in its various manifestations, and justice is an intrinsically ethical
aspiration. As many traditions have shown, ethics and religion are connected.
Though, as I argued in Understanding
Ethics, this is not necessarily the case: Indeed,
the human era at the conclusion of the twentieth century is probably the first
time in which a significant proportion of humanity confronts ethical choices
without the reference points traditional religion has provided. For some, the
diminishing influence of religion explains what they regard as a breakdown in
community ethics; for others, this trend is a liberating one enabling a truly
humanistic ethic to emerge; for yet others, the issue becomes one of discovering
an appropriate spirituality to support an ethic responsive to this era’s
challenges.[i] Although it may sometimes include what is popularly known as religion,
‘spirituality’ is a term I use to embrace a phenomenon which describes more
accurately where my interests have lain, beyond religion, beyond institutional
Christianity and beyond theism. In the final chapters I explain at greater
length the content I give to spirituality. The presumption I have brought to my
vocation is that spirituality can share a boundary with both ethics and
politics, supportive of the ethical life and potentially a helpful corrective in
political practice, though I certainly do not make the claim that you have to be
religious to be an ethical person or a good politician. In the end, I believe this memoir is a story about love – that is,
love is the essence of the spirituality and activism uncovered in these pages.
But along the way, as tends to happen with love stories, things are both messy
and magnificent. This is the human experience, and our continuing quest is to
understand and learn from experience.
Click on the cart below to purchase this book:
|
||||||||||||
| All
Prices in Australian Dollars CURRENCY
CONVERTER
(c)2006 Zeus Publications All rights reserved. |
