The adjective 'self' meaning 'being of the same material as the rest', becomes the prefix 'self-' meaning 'to, with, or for oneself'. Print culture brought to its zenith culminates in an individual self, rather than a tribal self. The idea of self as a collection of individual personality traits is peculiar to print cultures. In collectivist or group-centered cultures, the self is embedded in community. Tribal man is defined in context.
Individual man has no context.
In this century, our Western world is passing the apex of print culture. In the living breathing body that is us, we have lost all connection. For man has closed himself up, until he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.