pre-Kantian self

So I am reading Lacan -- a really good expository book this time. I am reflecting that the mirror stage -- whilst it contains a lot of truth -- is still somehow too narrow in its identification of the self as being defined and limited by the subject's body (in other words, the narrow individual).

I still maintain that my sense of self, before I came to the West, was much broader than this, as well as much more diffused. (This is due to the lack of experience of industrial and post-industrial consciousness).

I would say that my sense of self included the environments that I frequented, as well as my association with my peers. They were all included in my sense of self. Suppose I went somewhere where I did not feel was already part of myself -- like the boys' school across the vlei -- then I would feel that I had no right to assert a self. So my sense of self was rather tribal and territorial.