A recent exchange of public letters in the newspaper El Mercurio has highlighted an attempt by the Chilean right to rebuild its intellectual foundation and move away from a purely technical approach. The debate, unfolding through letters and columns, seeks to transcend administrative management in order to reclaim a sense of principles and order.
Lawyer and essayist Lucas Miranda sparked the discussion by proposing that the sector needs a more robust tradition. Miranda argued for the need to integrate the thought of Immanuel Kant to raise the standard of debate, suggesting that the current intellectual poverty of the right is not merely political, but a lack of substantive content.
Between Universalism and Concrete Reality
Philosopher and academic Hugo Herrera responded to Miranda’s proposal with a warning about the risks of abstraction. While acknowledging the presence of the Kantian tradition, Herrera argued that a right-wing movement based solely on universalism could become detached from the concrete experiences of the community and the people.
For the academic, politics must operate within the "thickness of reality" rather than merely on the plane of pure ideas. His intervention sought to shift the focus from the abstract toward the social tensions that define the national reality.
Meanwhile, lawyer Benjamín Truffello attempted to mediate the dispute by proposing a synthesis of both positions. Truffello argued that Kantianism is not incompatible with a role for the state, nor with the defense of the nation and wealth redistribution.
This period of reflection follows years of a reactive stance from the sector. According to analysts cited in the debate, the right became trapped in a technical position following the consolidation of concepts such as "abuse" within the left-wing narrative since 2011.
The debate also acknowledged gaps in the discussion, as it failed to address figures such as José Antonio Kast or libertarian movements. Nevertheless, the exchange marks a return to the production of an independent narrative in the face of the left's discursive hegemony.
