I appreciate the energy & fire of this piece, but I'd like to have a jolly good argument with him about it. It's possible to be a liberal thinker and see a number of view points - that's kind of what liberalism (a la John Stuart Mill) is.
And as academics, we are trained to think oppositionally, against the grain - it's the critical thinking that is essential to keep up innovation & creativity.
I think that partly what's gone a bit awry is that sometimes half-digested oppositional theory (often grouped together as "post-modernism" but po-mo is not an homogeneous set of ideas) is converted into half-digested not very thought through practice.
Which is to be expected - ideology/discourse/ideas/thinking/words have actual (material) consequences, as most (all?) women know to their cost. Being sexually harassed on the street (catcalled) can make you do things and/or feel a certain way: cross the road, shrink, look away, for example. Women know this, as do ethnic or racial minorities.
But there's a punitive fierce and vengeful edge to some of it now. Like a pent up spring is exploding - sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.
I'm coming over all po-mo myself a bit here - but it's a dialogue, a dialectic. As soon as we lose the will, ability, or freedom to debate - that's when we're lost.
So you know what I think about #NoDebate and "cancel culture" ...