La tolerancia como virtud democrática. Galdós desde una perspectiva actual.

This paper has two purposes. On one hand, to analyze tolerance as a public virtue in an open and democratic society. This requires asking about its justification, its function in today's societies and its limits. There is a distinction between two types of tolerance: negative tolerance, which would be equivalent to putting up with thoughts, opinions or behaviors with which one disagrees, even radically rejecting them, and positive tolerance, which, based on disagreement, would try to understand the opposing positions, putting oneself in the place of the other. On the other hand, to study the contribution to the idea of tolerance that we can find in some of the novels of Benito Pérez Galdós published at the end of the seventies of the 19th century. Galdós is a brilliant observer of the society of his time and an inexhaustible creator of characters. His literature has, in addition, an evident pedagogical vocation that can be completed with his commitment in the Spanish politics of the time when he considered it appropriate. The thesis of this work is that, frequently, the literary imagination creates the social morality and the vision and valuation of human conduct that later is the object of reflection by philosophers and regulation by legislators. In other words, by describing situations of intolerance in his literary characters, Galdós is forcing us to think about the benefits of tolerance and the detriments of intolerance. As an example of the practice of positive tolerance, the interesting and rewarding friendship between the traditionalist José María Pereda, the conservative Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo and the liberal Benito Pérez Galdós is pointed out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]