Ricardo Calleja: "It is necessary to rub shoulders with people from other fields".Ubi sunt? Christian intellectuals todayJosé María TorralbaA Christianity with a bourgeois mentality is problematic".The secularization of Chile has been impressive. In 2012, 64% of those under 35 years of age felt affinity with a religion. Ten years later, 63.6% say they do not identify with any. However, the situation changes notably if one looks at the field of culture, because in the last fifteen years the presence of the Christian intellectuals is greater than ever.
Who are they? Most of them are barely in their forties (some are much younger) and their voice is heard in all possible forums: traditional print media, digital media, very noticeably on radio and a little less on television. They are frequently interviewed, write books, participate in seminars and also carry out academic activities.
Profile of thinkers
These intellectuals are known for their participation in the political debate, but since they grew up in the Chile of the transition, they are not contaminated by the divisions affecting previous generations, who lived under the Pinochet dictatorship. This gives them enormous freedom of opinion and does not pigeonhole them into the traditional molds of Chilean politics.
In general, they maintain a friendly style and cultivate dialogue with people who think very differently, particularly intellectuals of the new left and social democracy. In fact, they are highly respected by them. Most of them ascribe to the Christian-social tradition, but this is evident not from the texts they quote but from their emphasis on "the invisible ones"to use the title of a book by historian Catalina Siles - one of them - and on the communitarian dimension of existence.
Unlike traditional conservatives and liberals, their argumentation is not primarily moral or economic, but usually has a political character. For example, if they are going to discuss abortion, they will not refer first of all to the right to life of the unborn, but to the fact that, by pointing out that the woman is the owner of her body, their interlocutors make their own the logic of the most extreme capitalism they claim to fight against. When they allude to euthanasia or homosexual "marriage", they put in the first place the type of society to which these practices lead.
These intellectuals talk about everything that worries Chileans, from immigration and the security crisis to housing or the demographic crisis, but never in terms of "cultural battle" or the like. Some of them have a more polemic style, as is the case of Pablo Ortúzar, a social anthropologist, former Trotskyist, but the tone of most of them is conciliatory and, in any case, they are always in dialogue with people and authors who think differently.
Influences received
Their Christianity is not merely cultural, although it has become culture in them. They are all people who live their faith, but who are nourished by very diverse intellectual traditions. There are authors, such as Tocqueville, who are present in most of them, but it would be difficult to establish common patterns. Raymond Aron, Chantal Delsol, Hannah Arendt or Robert Spaemann appear in their texts, but also Foucault and de Beauvoir, as well as more classical authors such as Aristotle, Locke, Rousseau, Montesquieu or Marx.
There are two Chilean authors who have clearly influenced them. On the one hand, the historian Gonzalo Vial (1930-2009), who in his lucid press columns announced the social crisis that was coming in Chile and was externalized in the serious convulsions that the country suffered in 2019. He also showed the limitations of economic rationality when it came to understanding what was happening in the country, an idea that, in contrast to the more traditional right, these authors have permanently pointed out, because theirs has been a constant insistence on the specificity of political reality, which is not reducible to the economy. Also the sociologist Pedro Morandé (1948) and his vindication of oral culture and the Latin American ethos has been a constant inspiration in his work.
The protagonists
The best known of all is Daniel Mansuy, professor at the Universidad de los Andes, political columnist and permanent panelist on radio and television. In his book Salvador Allende. The Chilean left and the Popular Unity (2023) dealt with one of the most controversial figures of 20th century Chile. Not only has it been the second best-selling non-fiction book in the country since 1990, but it was celebrated by almost all political sectors for the depth of its analysis and its weight. In fact, it was recommended by the President of the Republic himself, Gabriel Boric, a representative of the new left. Mansuy also carries out an active research work on Machiavelli and on the political ideas of the French Enlightenment.
Another well known figure is Josefina Araos, a young historian who published The forgotten people. A critique of the understanding of populism (2021), a book that received very positive reviews for its effort to understand this phenomenon rather than proceeding to its easy disqualification.
Without prejudice to their participation in the public debate, they all carry out extensive research work. Manfred Svensson, known for his studies on the political philosophy of the Reformation (The Aristotelian Tradition in Early Modern ProtestantismOxford University Press, 2024), tolerance and the public presence of religion, as well as Matías Petersen, who deals with various subjects related to the philosophy of social sciences (for example, Political Economy, Institutions and Virtue. Alasdair MacIntyre's Revolutionary Aristotelianism.Routledge, 2024) and Gabriela Caviedes, who researches feminism and gender.
These intellectuals carry out their work in various universities, but also in a number of other institutions. Thinks Tanks that have appeared in recent years.
The best known is the Institute of Society Studies (2006), which conducts research and has a constant public presence. In addition, its publishing house disseminates authors who allow it to bring new topics to the intellectual debate. It has published books by Robert Spaemann, Pierre Manent, Robert. P. George, Jean-Claude Michéa, Daniel Mahoney, the aforementioned Pedro Morandé and Alejandro Vigo, in addition to works by its own researchers.
Young profiles
With a markedly social-Christian stamp, it is worth mentioning IdeaCountrywhose members are particularly young. They also have a strong presence in the media, but in addition to this activity, they add training programs for university students, where they promote the emergence of public service vocations, with very good results.
Closer to conservative liberal thinking is Res Publicaa think tank whose educational activities reach young people from all over the country. It also maintains a publishing house. Its researchers, all very young, have a wide participation in the media, especially in radio.
A large number of these intellectuals support the "New Culture" program of the Universidad de los Andes, which since 2019 provides scholarships to train public intellectuals from all over Latin America.
The Chilean experience of public intellectuals with a Christian imprint shows the importance of intervening in the national discussion, of doing so on a wide variety of topics, with a constructive tone and without radically separating the world of research from the task of participating in the media, because, although they are very different activities, there is nothing to prevent the same people from carrying them out.
Professor of Philosophy at the Universidad de los Andes and political columnist for the newspaper El Mercurio.
