"Touchy-feely" doesn't really explain to me what potion you hold that would be criticized. What is it you usually read? Why would your comments on the emotional content on a book ostracize you?
Books like "Think" by Simon Blackburn don't bother me to comment on. They are pretty light treatments of the underlying topics, but (as philosophy), they are framed as rational discourses. (Whether they are or not is a different topic).
Topics about things like emotional intelligence (EQ) or persuasion or even nudging or race-relations in the 20th century can trigger a fairly rapid group response (primarily amongst the younger co-workers), and then you get to feeling piled upon (and even cancelled) pretty quickly.
It's a new world, and I'm pretty old, and as a sit-at-my-workstation-and-code engineer, I'm guessing that I may have allowed myself to get behind the curve on normative (allowable?) social opinions.
I think what this really means is that the more moderate you are, the more likely you are to feel stifled. Whether you're a liberal or conservative, the farther you are to one side the easier it is to know when and around who you can speak. Either you're in a stronghold for your respective group, or you wait until you're within the safe-haven of like-minded people in that area. As a moderate, you hold some views of both sides, and all you ever want to do if discussion comes up is explain how there are reasons why you hold these views that are you believe are rational, but to do so risks people categorizing you as "the other" from both sides. You learn to keep you mouth shut at all times, not just in one place or the other.
It seems that this favor is not returned.