An Analytical Study of the Concept of Identity Evolution in the Tripartite Molds of Traditional, Modern, and Post-modern Identities

The query about human existence has remained one of the most important questions which has preoccupied the thoughts and minds of man for thousands of years in many different forms which in turn encouraged him to find answers to such varied questions as: "Who am I?", and "Who are we?" This attempt eventually led to an evolution of the concept of "identity" and "self". This concept has though undergone radical changes in the process of socio-cultural as well as politico-economical turns emerging in the three major forms of past or traditional identity, current or modern identity and future or postmodern identity. The earliest identity mold was initially a single entity which based the human quest for identity on individual "self", dialogues and also mega narratives. The second type of identity has an eye on the current time and place changes and studies them in the light of modern time circumstances as a collective identity and not as an individual one. The third identity mold has a glimpse on subjects and factors that are in an ambiguous, unstable and volatile condition. Quite naturally, such an identity would be taken as a quality which is unstable, multiple, and changing, something that at times was called post-modern identity.