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Original article: Chile tiene un Presidente oscurantista: Kast, la ciencia y el peligro de gobernar sin conocimiento

By Leopoldo Lavín Mujica

President José Antonio Kast’s remarks on May 6, 2026, in Puerto Montt, questioning the state funding research that ends up «in a beautiful, bound book in the library,» were not a mere communication slip. They reflected a profoundly regressive political view regarding knowledge, science, and culture—a belief that leaves no room for doubt.

This instrumentalist perspective on knowledge embedded in the president’s statement does not stand alone. It is wrapped in religious certainties that do not allow for review. On the night of his electoral victory, Kast articulated it precisely: «Nothing is possible if we do not have God. Nothing happens in life, for those of us who are of faith, that is not in direct relation to God.»

With his arrival at La Moneda, for the first time in recent history, a president is actively affiliated with the Schoenstatt Catholic movement, an international community known for its strong spiritual discipline that has faced allegations of abuses of power and conscience.

«Recall the sleeping soul, awaken the mind and stir…» Government by decree and the burning of books—guess which political regime normalized these practices. Science is therefore, by definition, provisional, self-correcting, and open to critique. Revealed faith is not. When an unquestionable religious worldview takes hold of power, critical knowledge—the kind that questions, the kind that «ends up in a book»—becomes suspect.

Reducing the value of scientific, humanistic, and philosophical research to its immediate profitability is an unmistakable sign of obscurantism. Modern societies do not advance solely by producing commodities; they progress by developing knowledge, critical thinking, technological innovation, and scientific capabilities.

And herein lies one of the major issues with contemporary far-right governments: their growing tendency to replace scientific and philosophical rationality with rigid ideological perspectives, often supported by religious convictions that deem critical thought suspicious.

The Issue Runs Deeper Than a Single Statement

Chile is experiencing one of the most complex phases in its recent history: a climate crisis, accelerated technological transformation, job automation, artificial intelligence, labor precariousness, and international competition for scientific innovation, all within a context of intense political rivalry among superpowers.

In this scenario, the countries that survive are those that invest more in universities, laboratories, applied research, technological development, and public education. Chile is doing precisely the opposite.

For years, the country allocated merely around 0.4% of its GDP to science and technology, significantly below the OECD average. Instead of correcting this structural lag, the current government seems determined to exacerbate it.

The consequences became evident quickly. Within weeks of the new administration, Undersecretary of Science Rafael Araos, an infectious disease doctor and former head of the Epidemiology Department during the pandemic, resigned after refusing to carry out mass layoffs in the ministry. This exit was interpreted as a sign of a schism between the scientific community and the new government.

This issue is not solely about budget. It’s about a worldview.

Religious Presidents in Times of Monsters

The problem is not that a ruler has religious beliefs. The issue arises when that religious perspective transforms into a manner of understanding the state, science, and society.

Contemporary far-right movements—from the United States to Latin America and Europe—have built a significant part of their political discourse on absolute moral certainties, rejection of intellectual pluralism, and distrust toward universities, scientists, and international organizations.

In Chile, Kast has repeatedly embraced a political vision linked to conservative religious values. This would be less concerning if it did not coincide with an extremely worrying global trend: governments that downplay the climate crisis, discredit experts, cut public research funding, and replace evidence-based policies with ideological convictions.

However, the 21st century demands entirely the opposite. Artificial intelligence, pandemics, environmental collapse, labor automation, and global technological competition require governments capable of understanding complex systems, heeding scientific evidence, and planning strategically for the long term.

You cannot govern the present with mental categories suited to pre-modern societies. The countries that will lead in the coming decades will be those that invest massively in science, higher education, laboratories, technology, and critical thinking. Those that transform universities into engines of innovation. Those that make libraries and research centers into strategic infrastructure.

Politics grounded in unwavering religious dogmas inevitably clashes with scientific logic, which, conversely, functions by questioning, reviewing, correcting, and subjecting all knowledge to scrutiny.

When ultra-conservative governments dismiss social sciences, ridicule research, or deem books and intellectual production useless, they ultimately weaken the nation’s ability to comprehend the contemporary world.

Banned Books and Democracies in Decline

The assault on knowledge is not exclusively Chilean. In various states of the U.S., especially under conservative administrations aligned with Trumpism, campaigns have promoted the banning and removal of books from school and public libraries.

Among the authors targeted or removed in certain districts are works by Isabel Allende, a renowned Chilean writer, amid a wave of cultural censorship driven by ultra-conservative religious sectors.

These are not isolated incidents but part of a broader political trend: controlling educational content, restricting discussions about history, gender, racism, or memory, and subjecting cultural production to ideological criteria.

Isabel Allende recently warned about the deterioration of democracy in the U.S. under the political climate established during President Donald Trump’s term and the rise of radicalized conservative movements. Her statements pointed directly to the danger of a politics rooted in identity fanaticism, aggressive nationalism, and religious fundamentalism that views all forms of critical thought with suspicion.

This international phenomenon helps to better understand the situation in Chile, as contemporary obscurantism no longer appears dressed in explicit censorship or public book burnings. It manifests as budget efficiency, defense of traditional values, or rejection of «intellectual elites.»

However, the result is similar: weakened universities, cultural disinvestment, hostility toward researchers, and systematic distrust of science.

The Cost of Obscurantism

If Chile invests merely 0.4% of its GDP in science and technology, a figure well below the OECD average, cutting postgraduate scholarships, disinvesting in research, and forcing the departure of senior officials like Araos are not reasonable austerity measures: they are signals of a political priority.

A country that only recognizes as valuable what provides immediate employment ends up incapacitated to create the conditions for complex employment, sophisticated industries, technological innovation, and intellectual sovereignty.

The bound books in libraries—including those of García Márquez, as well as those by Gabriela Mistral and Pablo Neruda, both Nobel Prize winners that Chile prides itself on invoking—are not mere decorations. They are the memory of what a society has contemplated about itself. A society that ceases to reflect on its identity, that hands over its intelligence to the market and its spirituality to structures of vertical obedience, is a society in regression.

Obscurantism does not always arrive with bonfires. Sometimes it comes with budget cuts, phrases about books that do not generate jobs, and the conviction—sincere, fervent—that everything important is already inscribed in a book older than any investigation.

Chile needs to cultivate generations capable of competing in a world dominated by artificial intelligence, biotechnology, automation, and the knowledge economy. Great powers understood this decades ago; the United States, China, South Korea, and Germany are contesting the 21st century through universities, technological centers, and scientific development. No modern power emerged by disregarding books.

History shows that periods of decline begin when political power replaces knowledge with dogmas, propaganda, or fanaticism. This is why Kast’s words matter. They reveal something deeper than an opinion on state funding. They uncover a cultural worldview where science, intellectual reflection, and the humanities find themselves subordinated to a narrow logic of immediate utility.

And that is precisely the definition of an obscurantist policy. Chile cannot afford such a luxury.

Leopoldo Lavín Mujica

La entrada Chile’s President Kast: The Dangers of Ignoring Science and Knowledge in Governance se publicó primero en El Ciudadano.