The standard cultural identifiers of the modern and early postmodern eras no longer play a major part in people's personal or political lives. Most people have many identities and social roles, but no particular attachment to any one of them as the primary definer of who and what they are. Nation-states are important in the global system, but nationalism has lost its emotional force . Being a citizen of a particular nation means about as much as being a resident of a particular county or province. The freedom of people to move increases gradually with the relaxation of immigration laws.
Most countries have fairly simple requirements for obtaining citizenship and voting rights.
Boundaries of class and caste that once shaped societies continue to fade . Marxism has withered away, too, along with other rigid ideologies that once served as props of personal identity. People everywhere feel free to convert to other religions, and many people identify with more than one religion . Cyberspace has become a rich and realistic realm of experience. Its activities include the No-Self Network, which is concerned with liberation from the self .