who does? the violent man-emperor
who is? that for whom the merchants weep . . . in the porno of the human condition, the market where it is traded as commodity . . .
John lists 29 luxury products of Roman world trade from gold, wine, olive oil — to slaves. If the beast signifies imperialist politics, Babylon signifies not the consuming debauchery of neoliberal capitalism, but of its ancestor, the imperial global economy. He suddenly turns on her, devours her, bringing down the whole system. The “merchants weep” at global economic collapse.
— Catherine Keller, here
who’s the John?
Jesus, hanging there, captive audience, says, John, tells him, the youngest disciple, son of Zebedee and Mary Salome,
possibly Jesus’ mum’s sister, so this is Jesus telling his cousin and his mum’s nephew, that he’s to look after Mary, Mum.
Which he does. In a little house outside of modern Selçuk, a long walk, a shorter drive, from Ephesus, both Mary’s house and Ephesus sites of hyperindustrial tourism (see here and here [for the miracle of Para Para Para and the miraculous snap]).
This is also John who is granted a vision on Patmos where he’s been sent into exile and writes The Book of Revelation, The Book of the Apocalypse, which Keller is talking about, saying that apocalypse includes the revelation that the beast-violent-man-emperor turns on the market (feminised and commodified and so personified) and eats her.
As Keller points out, it’s not prophecy. It’s the perennial production of the cause of its downfall from the conditions which produced the state form, in the figure who, although the stress is put on the more colourful sexy market, couldn’t be clearer, the Violent Man-Emperor.
