Department of Social Sciences, Technical
University in Kosice, Slovakia
Abstract:
Tolerance
is an important condition for the stabilization of our democratic development
and at the same time it is a normative value and an ethical concept. Tolerance
should be perceived and applied as an imminent part of the system of human and
civic rights. Citizens, laws and (national and multinational) institutions have
to co-coperate so that formal and legal guarantees of democracy can be
generally realized and applied. The concept of citizenship in it contains the
idea of equality where the civic principle doesn't eliminate conflict nor
social disparity but changes their quality. Solving social disparity and
eventual conflicts among citizens (equal in their civic rights) is based on
civic, political and social rights. Within the education process it is
necessary to present tolerance as a right to express one's own opinion and a
right to defend the principle of plurality, discussion, dialogue, and
acceptance by means of critically analyzing each other's attitudes.