Pre-Modern Identity - In the past, your identity was defined by your stable and longstanding, role within the class system. If you were working class you were identified as being working class.
Modern Identity - You were offered a wider range of roles to take on as society moved forward a bit in terms of social mobility. This allows you to start choosing your identity.
Post-Modern Identity - Today it is accepted that everyone has lots of identities as people fulfil different roles wherever they go and whatever they do.
The idea of social mobility follows the trickle down theory, in that what the upper class people are doing, the middle class start trying to do, in order to improve their own identity, and what he middle class are doing, the working class start doing. This emulation and distinction is a constant process.
Georg Simmel theorises that people no longer show their whole identity, because the speed of modern life forces us within ourselves in order to find peace, rather than seeking it elsewhere.
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