What's the Difference Between Being Cancelled and Being Criticized?

Author Jonathan Rauch describes what some people have called our modern "cancel culture" as "a kind of social murder of making it very difficult for someone to have a job, for example, to lose their career, or to endanger all their friends." In this article, he spotlights the warning signs that something is "canceling and not criticism."

His broadly intellectual argument is an interesting read, but strikes me as unlikely to bring people who think differently together. A much more compelling exploration of a related topic is Jon Ronson's book about the evolution of public shaming, So You've Been Publicly Shamed, and what these personal attacks on one another say about the culture we live in and ourselves.