Habermas believed a nationalistic collective identity was no longer feasible in a globalized modern world and scorned ethnic cohesion as a part of nineteenth century nationalism irrelevant in a new age of international migration. His theory was therefore grounded in the idea that "the symbolic unity of the person that is produced and maintained through self-identification depends... on belonging to the symbolic reality of a group, on the possibility of localizing oneself in the world of this group. A group identity that transcends the life histories of individuals is thus a precondition of the identity of the individual." In a disenchanted world, individual and collective identities were no longer formed by internalizing nationalist values but by becoming aware of "what they want and what others expect from them in the light of moral concerns" from an impartial position.