One of the moral imperatives of our time, become almost a slogan, promotes the ability to "be themselves" ignoring the opinion of others. The origin of this modern idea of ​​individual authenticity is generally traced back to Rousseau: from romantic age, his writings and his life were read as paradigmatic examples of a new ethic, which enhances the originality, the autonomy, the spontaneity, the loneliness, the trust that there is a "natural" ego independent of interpersonal relationships. This book offers a different interpretation and rediscover the Rousseau of the social ego and the thinker aware of the mediation and of the fight in the genesis of identity, the psychologist of the rivalry and the mimicry, the sociologist of the conflicts of prestige, the intellectual who uses knowledge as challange and seduction. The dialectic between romantic impulse and need for recognition set out the framework within the thought of Rousseau moves, highlighting, as punctually illustrated by the author, a conflict of modern subjectivity where the individualistic aspiration is opposed to the social needs of the human condition.