I'm completely lost on the phrase 'secret cause'. I understand the references to dismemberment and the cult of Dionysus and all of that context around it, but what is this secret cause referenced here?Pity is the feeling which arrests the mind in the presence of whatever is grave and constant in human sufferings and unites it with the human sufferer. Terror is the feeling which arrests the mind in the presence of whatsoever is grave and constant in human sufferings and unites it with the secret cause.
I searched around a bit and reviewed Aristotle's ideas and read the context around the Joyce quote in Portrait of the Artist, but I still don't know what the secret cause is. Here is what I'm thinking so far:
Pity would be if we watched a Guantanamo Bay detainee get tortured and focused on the pain of the detainee as a human being, without connecting it to a context. To experience terror we must consider context, which is called the secret cause.
The secret cause can be the secret cause of the specific suffering we are watching. For example, the secret cause for a Guantanamo Bay detainee's torture would be the jailer's desire to exert authority, perhaps due to some personal history or something. To be more specific, the secret cause might be that the detainee gave the jailer a dirty look. The secret cause could also be the cause of suffering in general, which would cause the suffering we are watching but in doing so be referencing some greater Satan or shade figure. In this case, the secret cause for a Guantanamo Bay detainee to be tortured would be the power hungry, possibly once virtuous tyrants in DC, who were put there by voters who don't care if we torture people or not. Society is torturing this human being, not the jailer. Perhaps terror is the revelation of evil in general?
I'm just throwing wild conjectures here. What do you think the secret cause is?
Care to let me in on the secret?