I think each side of the Cancel Culture debate sometimes practices a kind of moral flattening. A misconstrued joke is different to someone potentially putting a man's life in danger, which is different to a political activist, which is different to a provocative columnist.

https://twitter.com/sarahbraasch1/status/1294665237719846914

I write in Shamed that shamings are always about more than the transgression, but you can't look at a shaming and ignore the nature of the transgression either. Some on the right and centre like to criticize ALL online shamings, no matter the circumstances...

Hey, would it help anyone if I did a series of daily writing tips? Advice for people wanting to write during the lockdown? I'll try not to disincentivize. Ok! #1 Go back to a sentence you wrote yesterday and cut out every superfluous word. Make your point in as few words as possible!

Annoying! This actually comes from a reasoned piece, but still. I saw a v prominent writer tweet the other day something like 'Cancel culture doesn't exist. It's just criticism.' She reminded me of that horrible British thing where bullies attack you and say, "It's just banter." She was criticizing people equating cancel culture to Stalinism. I get it. When Shamed first came out and people were really piling on me I got upset and said to my wife "It's like the Khmer Rouge!" And she went, "It's NOT like the Khmer Rouge." It wasn't like the Khmer Rouge...

I'm going to tell you my Concorde story. Many years ago the UK radio presenter Chris Evans was supposed to go on a private plane to Minneapolis to meet Prince. They had a spare seat and asked me if I wanted it. I said, "YES I DO."

https://twitter.com/jumblejim/status/1188114858299969536

For some reason Chris Evans bailed, so they cancelled the private plane, but they didn't want to abandon the whole trip so asked me if I wanted to fly on Concorde to meet Prince instead. I said, "YES."