On 23 September 2022, Christiaan W. J. M. Alting von Geusau gave a lecture at the first Slachta lecture conference of the Barankovics István Foundation on “Christianity and Public Life, Being a Christian in Europe Today” at the Dialogue House.
Christiaan W. J. M. Alting von Geusau holds law degrees from Leiden University and Heidelberg University. At the University of Vienna, he defended his doctoral dissertation in the philosophy of law, which was published in 2013 under the title “Human Dignity and Law in Post-War Europe”. He is the founding President of the Phoenix Institute Europe Foundation and co-founder of the International Catholic Legislators Network. In 2012 he and his wife founded the Thomas Morus High School in Austria. He lectures and publishes in the fields of law, philosophy and education, with a special focus on Christian identity, history and human rights.
Read his full biography here.
The International Catholic Legislators Network, which he presides, was established in 2010 to support the public ministry of Christian leaders. The Institute aims to provide them with educational programmes, theological and professional background and a global network to enable them to carry out their work in a highly professional, ethical and responsible manner.
Four of his papers are published below in English, with the author’s permission, after brief summaries of their contents in English.
Human rights, history and anthropology: reorienting the debate (2013)
Abstract
The paper seeks to answer the question of how it is possible that even after the Declaration of Human and Civil Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, fundamental documents declaring human rights are brutally and massively trampled underfoot in the world. Just as racial discrimination existed in America in the 20th century, despite the Declaration of Independence, which sought to guarantee the equality and freedom of all human beings, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights could not prevent the massacres in Rwanda in 1994 or Srebrenica in 1995, and the international community is still powerless to prevent the persecution of Christians in the world.
The author argues that human rights are not really protected by large organisations and declarations, but by the ordinary actions of very ordinary people. The protection of human rights depends on how individuals deal with evil, how they react to any injustice committed against people. It shows how basically good people become indifferent, how they become the perpetrators of crimes against humanity. The key to the question, the train of thought suggests, is to understand the anthropology of human beings. Here there is a fundamental difference between secular and theological understandings of human rights. The theological understanding treats them as deriving from natural law and affirms that man is created in the image of God. If we want to understand what it means to be human, we must accept that human rights do not depend on man, but on God. The secular conception of rights rejects any role for God in the life of society. As a result, human rights can no longer be taken for granted and are unequally, i.e. not universally, protected. A system has developed which is driven by opinion and feeling rather than by the reality of the created order. The defence of human rights is easily held hostage to politics.
The paper concludes by suggesting that it is in the common interest to move away from the barricades of ideological warfare and engage in a dialogue to bridge the gap between Christian and secular conceptions of human rights and to find common ground.
Read the full paper here.
Are Human Rights Helpful or Harmful? (The European Conservative, 2013)
Abstract
This paper examines the social functions of human rights in the context of contemporary topicalities: on 11 January 2011, the German Federal Constitutional Court presents and examines a case concerning sexual self-determination and the European Court of Human Rights concerning the right to abortion. In the author’s view, these issues cannot be elevated to the status of human rights because they deny the divine order, lead to chaos, relativise human rights and seek to disguise this with the slogans of tolerance and inclusion. It points out that, while the source of rights in the American Declaration of Independence was still explicitly the Creator, in the French Declaration of Human and Civil Rights the State is the donor of rights. After the Holocaust, in 1948, another attempt to affirm human rights was made, followed by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. But history has shown that declarations have not prevented rights from being trampled underfoot. The reason for this, according to the author, lies in the lack of an anthropological foundation. What is important is not the state but the people who live in it: the man created by God is above the state. Human dignity can only be preserved if the divine nature of man is understood, and human rights are derived from natural law. Today, anyone who dares to criticise same-sex marriage is branded a homophobe. The right to abortion is solely about the right of women to dispose and leaves no room for the protection of the weakest, the foetus. It is ruthless individualism when one human being overrides the life of another human being.
The conclusion of the study is that without the right to life, all other human rights will be violated.
Read the full paper here.
What is Education? (European Conservative 2022)
Abstract
In this article, Christiaan W. J. M. Alting von Geusau outlines his ideas on education based on the classics of the Christian pedagogical tradition. He explores the possibilities that help to avoid the pitfalls of education in the 21st century. The main aim of education, he argues, is to develop the ‘core’ and talent in every child, and thus to establish inner spiritual freedom. Among other things, it stresses the authenticity of the teacher as a person and the role of the harmony between word and deed in education. There are few things more destructive, he writes, than teachers who do not live up to their own teachings. He identifies the essence of education as the development of character, for he believes that only children with the right virtues and morals are capable of the effort required for intellectual development. The community is an irreplaceable means of developing character, where children can learn about the ‘reality of life’. No digital education can replace this. It identifies as a priority the development of autonomous and critical thinking, so that real freedom of thought and expression can be achieved, rather than slavishly adopting the ideas of opinion leaders and ‘experts’.
Read the full paper here.
Totalitarianism and the Five Stages of Dehumanization (Published:https://brownstone.org/articles/totalitarianism-and-the-five-stages-ofdehumanization/ November 17, 2021)
Abstract
Totalitarianism remains a real threat in the 21st century: the “demon” can threaten democracies. Coercive forces may emerge that tell citizens “how to think, what to do, how to evaluate events, what to dream, and what language to use.”
The author draws on the findings of Hanna Arendt’s theory of totalitarianism to examine what happened in the world during the years of the global Covid epidemic. During the epidemic, people were under unprecedented pressure to agree to far-reaching and mostly unconstitutional restrictive measures. This period showed not only how strong the instinct for security is in people, but also how easily they give up the freedoms that their grandfathers and fathers once fought so hard for.
It examines phenomena such as quarantines, travel bans, censorship, the suppression of debate and the shaming of critical voices, all of which are reminiscent of the dehumanising measures of totalitarianism. It concludes that exclusionary narratives about the uninoculated in the media served to create and maintain fear, on the sole basis that the uninoculated behaved differently from the majority. In many countries around the world, they have lost their jobs, been segregated and banned from community life. Science was also politicised: only works that supported the ostracisation of the uninoculated were published. Social media participated in this censorship in an unprecedented way.
In the concluding part of the essay, the author seeks to answer the question of how to free ourselves from the power of a state that has forgotten that it has an equal obligation to serve and protect all its citizens, not just those it deems worthy.
Read the full paper here.
