In what Sense is 'I' a Social Conception? — The answer is this is apparently something as follows: 'I' is social in that the very essence of it is the assertion of self-will in a social medium of which the speaker is conscious. A sympathetic study of the early word will, I think, make this quite plain. 'I' is addressed to an audience — usually with some emphasis — and its purpose is to impress upon that audience the power ('I make go'), the wish ('I go play sand-pile'), the claim ('my mama'), the service ('I get it for you') of the speaker. Its use in solitude would be inconceivable (though the audience may, of course, be imaginery). To put it otherwise, 'I' is a differentiation in a vague body of personal ideas which is either self-conscious or social consciousness, as you please to look at it...(Charles Horton Cooley, 1908, p. )
On the other hand, the stuff that goes to make up the 'me' whom the 'I' addresses and whom he observes, is the experience which induced by this action of the 'I.' If the 'I' speaks, the 'me' hears. If the 'I' strikes, the 'me' feels the blow. Here again the 'me' consciousness is of the same character as that which arises from the action of the other upon him. That is, it is only as the individual finds himself acting with reference to himself as he acts towards others, that he becomes a subject to himself rather than an object, and only as he is affected by his own social conduct in the manner in which he is affected by that of others, that he becomes an object to his own social conduct (George Herbert Mead, 1913, p. 375)
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