Societies change; and sociology has, since its inception, described and evaluated these changes. This article proposes a revised theory of collective learning processes, a conceptual framework which addresses ways in which people make sense of and cope with change. Drawing on Habermas’ classic proposal, but shifting the focus from argumentation towards storytelling, it explains how certain articulations allow for collective learning processes (imagining more inclusive orders), while others block learning processes (imagining more exclusive orders). More specifically, the article points to narrative genres (romance, tragedy, comedy and irony) which organize feelings and shape the social bond, proposing that ironic and tragic stories have the potential to trigger collective learning processes, while romantic and comic stories tend to block them.

Resumen AbstractEn este trabajo pretendo corregir algunos de los "excesos" y simplificaciones de las teorías posmodernistas sobre la identidad. Trato de restituir al sujeto una ontología que no lo reduzca a meras determinaciones sociales, recuperar su carácter corpóreo-orgánico (embodiment) para su comprensión/construcción y, de este modo, retomar la cuestión de la unidad del sujeto (y de la unidad de/en su identidad) frente a la manida exaltación de su fragmentación (pluralidad de su identidad; en oposición a lo cual sostengo la idea de una 'pluralidad de/en su identidad'). In this article I want to correct the excesses and simplifications which postmodernist theories have introduced into the current conception of personal identity. I argue for a subject who transcends social determination (although I do not deny the idea of subjectification)and who is embodied, so that the question of the subject's unity (the unity of/in his or her identity) and can be examined without falling into the clichés of fragmented structure. I argue for the replacement of the notion of the plurality of identity with the more complex notion of plurality of/in identity.