We've All Been Abused

I remember a few years back, on an Ishmael related discussion board that I participated in, someone made the remark that they didn't philosophize from the standpoint of a victim. This was in relation to Derrick Jensen's work. At the time it made sense on the surface. But given the depth and subtlety of Jensen's work I knew it didn't go far enough. That Jensen wasn't just sitting around whining about the abuse he suffered at the hands of his father.

Well, I ran across this insight by the psychologist James Hillman this morning:

"So we don't want to get rid of the feeling of being abused--maybe that's very important, the feeling of being abused, the feeling of being without power. But maybe we shouldn't imagine that we are abused by the past[For example, by parents, teachers, etc, from the past] as much as we are by the actual situation of 'my job,' 'my finances,''my government'--all the things that we live with. Then the consulting room becomes the cell of revolution, because we would be talking also about, 'What is actually abusing me right now?' That would be a great venture, for therapy to talk that way." Pg.39, We've Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy and The Worlds Getting Worse

The system we live in is abusive. I think this is the first time I've ever typed that.