Why is the concept of self important? What does it tell us about social relations?

Humans have long been organized into social groups which have evolved over many thousands of years into complex societies with highly elaborate codes controlling social relations. The relationship between the individuals which make up a society and the society itself has been discussed and analysed by philosophers and sociologists since from the times of the Ancient Greeks until today. It would appear that there is a natural tension between the needs and desires of the individual and those of other individuals within that social group as well as between the individual and the rules of the society itself. From birth the individual, through agents of socialization, continually develops by acquiring language…(short extract)