This chapter maps a genealogy of modernity through the victim paradigm, from Rousseau to the War on Terror. In the past, victimhood was one shade among many on a palette dominated by the agency to transform oneself to transform the world, whereas contemporary societies are beset by a preoccupation with identity consolidation. The chapter roots this transition from a heroic to a victimary paradigm in the 1960s, which saw the Holocaust first characterised as a source of pride, and American soldiers in Vietnam portrayed as the war’s true victims. Looking at the co-option by capitalism of the demands and watchwords of social movements of the’60 s and’70 s, the chapter explores the unrealisable promise of the capitalist’s discourse, and how the dissatisfaction and void it generates prevent the working through of the necessary frustrations of living, instead casting identity as a right and reversing victimhood into a form of prestige.