He felt valued by his family, and so wasn’t much bothered that people at school didn’t understand him. “I had myself, which was enough.” And then, at age 12, he read one of the major classics of Dutch post-war literature, The Discovery of Heaven by Harry Mulisch. “I devoured that book. I felt like: see, I’m not the only one. It made me realise that being smart is actually quite fun.” And that wasn’t all. He discovered Hamlet, Nabokov, Beethoven and his all-time favourite, the film Dead Poets Society. An English teacher, portrayed by Robin Williams, uses an inspiringly theatrical approach to familiarise his prep-school pupils with art and literature. Above all, he creates a special sense of community and encourages the boys to get the best out of themselves. “Wow. I wanted to be in a club with a teacher like that.”

Like-minded

Behind his desk are canvas prints of University College Utrecht, Oxford, Yale and Maastricht University – special places in Dekker’s life. UCU was where he first met like-minded people, or, as he puts it, ‘old friends who just met’. “People who were similarly serious, determined to achieve and eager to learn. People who didn’t gape at me when I said I loved Nabokov’s Pale Fire.” He graduated summa cum laude with a double major in Social Sciences and Arts & Humanities. Next stop: a master’s in political philosophy at the University of Oxford. “Oxford was the superlative of UCU. I wasn’t the only smart person there; there were people who were a lot smarter than me.” At Oxford he met the man who would become his PhD supervisor: the philosopher Gerald Cohen. “The English are well aware that politics, academia and theatre go together very well. Like me, they love ceremonies, costume parties and rituals. I love Anglo-Saxon philosophy, the theatre of structure. Only a structured way of thinking can lead to meaningful answers. I had a real click with Cohen. He was renowned as a stand-up comedian, a great performer. When lecturing he would frequently burst into song – wonderful. We often sent each other emails written as poems. It was our Dead Poets Society.”

He teaches political philosophy to about 80 students per year, and mentors the same number. Fifteen of his students have ended up in political philosophy, he says with pride. “Five of them went on to the same master’s programme I did at Oxford. One of my first ever students now works at the Dutch Ministry of Health, investigating whether society should continue to pay for very expensive drugs used by only a small number of patients. That’s exactly what my field is about. How should we think about this? How should we broach this subject with patient organisations? Where’s the line? These are truly political questions that can only be solved through a very structured way of thinking.”

These days, he rarely goes to the theatre; he’s too busy with work. “But when I go to the movies, I always wonder if I can use the film in one of my classes somehow. I recently saw a documentary about a famous London hotel in which a French concierge says of his job (with a strong accent): ‘I like to be amongst happy people who are happy because I make them happy.’ That’s me.”