It's unpleasant that this behavior happens (especially when it extends, as it usually does, to trying to have the other guy kicked out of forums, clubs, and even jobs) -- but I think it's a mistake to remain as chivalrous as this author when you're the victim of it. Better to scorch the earth. Not against all opponents, but certainly against the one who would have YOU ostracized. That's personal, and the victim who doesn't treat it as an act of war is a patsy and an enabler.

Real friends are those who like you in spite of your differences.
I don’t know what you call these bizarre purity tests for Uber woke orthodoxy. These people are without any real friends. They have sycophants instead,

I’m just kind of amazed that people like this author can see the poisonous dangers of cancel culture, and still go all in on voting for the politicians that invented it, and have doubled down on it.
Makes me think they are on board with the whole concept, just are too obtuse to see that it will eventually bite any reasonable thinking discerning individual in the ass.

I'm always amazed at how, while touting their tolerance and openness, leftists lock themselves in a comfortable but very small prison of their own making. And it's built so that it keeps getting smaller, so pretty soon there's no room even for their fellow prisoners. May the chains rest lightly on your shoulders, leftist friends.

I disagree with you Jdgal1. I think the author did things right, though with a lot more effort than I'm willing to put in.

Thankfully I'm not a purity nut and I won't refuse to ever talk to you again over a simple disagreement like this.

Isab, the very vast majority of people are inherently irrational. It is the default state. You have to teach rationality. Unfortunately most people only get taught rationalizing, which really isn't any better than being irrational.

My sister is very much part of this west coast culture. She is very well educated. Has a master of science in mechanical engineering. At the same time she has expressed equality is when she gets everything she want. The concept that both people have to agree to talk to have a conversation is alien enough to her she literally can't grasp it. Which baffles the hell out of me, but I've been round and round this a few times. She truly appears incapable of understanding. Just like this author can't understand.

At this point I'd be grateful to be canceled.

Isab, the very vast majority of people are inherently irrational. It is the default state. You have to teach rationality. Unfortunately most people only get taught rationalizing, which really isn't any better than being irrational.”

Of course. I’m not sure you can teach rationality or if you can, there isn’t a lot of transference. I know a few people who are brilliant mathematicians, but their mathematical rational mindset doesn’t extend to anything they have decided to deal with on an emotional level.
I was quite amused that Lionel Shriver still doesn’t really grock why people might vote for Trump or for Boris Johnson. She apparently doesn’t understand that excommunication is quick surgical amputation, that will keep you from ever having to question your own logic or beliefs.
Assuming your opponents on any issue are all racists, is the easy way out of any kind of possible self reflection or doubt.

The "tolerant" show their tolerance by being intolerant. Gotcha.

Isab, the very vast majority of people are inherently irrational.

Not nearly as irrational as this all-or-nothing thinking. Expertise in a given field can make people quite aware and astute and proceed logically when navigating that particular system. Take them out of their element, and they might behave irrationally.

A lawyer, for instance, might be quite capable and competent and navigate the legal channels logically, anticipating the traps and obstacles, and eventually produce the desired outcome. Take that same person to the gym, and he might decide to copy the workout of the biggest guy in the gym. Unaware that the biggest guys in the gym are on steroids and in any case, their workouts are not for beginners.

Those enforcing purity tests and canceling seem unaware that people change their minds. Most people. In 2008 Obama favored man-woman marriage and Clinton got a law passed to that effect. Clinton drastically cut welfare rolls. Suddenly there is support for men using women's locker rooms where only a few years ago no one supported that. So many things change so fast. Political support for an issue in congress can flip faster than one can keep track of. All this cancel for the latest fad opinion is acting like the world is only 5 minutes old. Ok for teens but not for real adults. In addition, people are called racist for nonsense reasons, for things they didn't even say.

They don't care if you change your mind. The left's cancel culture is completely and utterly unforgiving. You "sin" once (sin being in their estimation) and you can never be forgiven. They will hold it over your head for your entire life. You could spend the rest of your life kissing their collective ass, and you still won't be forgiven. Even if they claim you've been forgiven, you won't be. The threat of bringing up your sin will be used to keep you in check.

RE: intelligence and rationality:

"Every person is a conservative about things that they know about, or that are close to them."

We all know that the journalist bolloxed up the reporting about something we are familiar with. Then we turn the page and credulously accept what is written about things outside our ken.

I work with computer programmers - who, like mathematicians, are blissfully unaware of the limits of their rational-but-theoretical way of thinking. They just know that all their lives they have been told that they are smart.

Often they have no common-sense, practical evaluation tools, or a sense of process. It's enough to demonstrate that something is possible or internally consistent - like a geometrical proof.

When you discuss current affairs with them real-world, measured phenomena and the reality of politically and emotionally driven "irrational" behavior hits them like a totally unexpected wrecking ball. They sometimes cannot be made to understand it - and refuse to understand that reality trumps their theory.

After enough time passes for them to reconstitute their worldview, they will again discuss the same issue in the same way - having learned nothing.

It's interesting how some groups love and embrace the newly converted, and others just plain don't trust them.

Often that depends on what the primary needs of the group are at the time. Is the group small? Are they desperately trying to expand? Then they usually strongly embrace newcomers. Is the group large? Is the internal situation fragile? Has there been a recent history of external sabotage or betrayal? Then groups become more standoffish. Require people to 'earn' their place. Most adopt both strategies. There is a hard to enter core that is slow to trust surrounded by a soft easy to enter cloud.

Unfortunately with nepotism and aging organizations don't survive very long either way.

I was excommunicated by "friends" years ago when Bush was President.

It was their behavior that told me they really weren't friends.

Their lose, not mine.