Abstract
The concept of free and independent individual forms the base of modern society, or of modern civilized society. It can be named as "modern self". It is supposed to possess independent moral ability, rational mentality and private property. And the liberated modern individual resists public power and tries to protect their private life, which is the base of modern law.
But modern society has the paradox in which it tend to destruct the modern self presupposed by modern society itself.
We can find that paradox in the three works of three different genres. One is Lionel Trillig's "Sincerity and Authenticity" in the genre of literary criticism. Another is the writings of M. Foucault in philosophy, and the last is the writings of N. Luman in social science. We find the collapse of modern self in such literatures written after the 70s, all which we may say belong to postmodernism in a broader sense.
