Resumen

SANTOS GOMEZ, Marcos. The “Horizontalness” of Human Relations and Tolerance . Utopìa y Praxis Latinoamericana [online]. 2006, vol.11, n.34, pp.79-90. ISSN 1315-5216.

Tolerance is a value which may be understood as an enthusiastic inclusion of the other in one’s world. This vision will be our starting point, highlighting the fact that to be tolerant would require the capacity for and the possibility of listening. We mean, in this sense, both an inner disposition of the subject as well as a particular social structure which allows for this listening, but we emphasize the necessity of an appropriate psychic configuration, which we refer to as “horizontalness”. We follow in particular the approach by Erich Fromm and Paulo Freire, among others, to describe this “tolerant horizontalness” and finish by discovering in it the health and reconciliation of humankind with itself.

Palabras clave : Tolerance; social character; dialogue; authoritarianism.