Mark Shea is always good for a laugh...

I once took Mark Shea to task for a truly hateful nihilistic rant, a diatribe if you will on the subject of the death penalty and a judgement on a specific instance thereof by Justice Antonin Scalia [PDF link] of the US Supreme Court. This was standard third/third Shea stuff. (Shea's blog operates by a rule of thirds - one third sane and sensible, one third over the top and the third third pure venom, making out that the opposition are not wrong but evil.)

Just today, in the context of the drummed-up, fake outrage about Cardinal Pell's comments on the Old Testament, Shea commented that

any subculture... can, by the way fall into the same trap of epistemic closure. It's the problem that contempt always creates. When you hold an enemy in contempt, you start to believe your own press releases about how stupid they are and simply cannot believe that they hold ideas different from what your peer group constantly recirculates.

Hilariously, Shea the diagnostician of pathological polemic can apply himself to someone else's flaws and foibles but isn't at all ready to see his own. Really, physician heal thyself!