Emotional correctness

With the help of my new iPad mini and my 45 minute commute to work, I've had the opportunity to become slightly hooked on TED Talks. So over the next few weeks I’m going to blog about the talkers I have found to be the most inspiring, starting with Sally Kohn. In this video, Sally Kohn a progressive lesbian talking head for Fox News talks about the importance of emotional correctness. She highlights that for years we have spent so much time worrying about political correctness and not focussed on what is emotionally correct. With a huge opinion and a challenging career, Sally Kohn finds herself dealing with large quantities of hate mail whether it is an abusive letter or a nasty tweet she’s heard it all. But as she explains the numerous times she’s been labelled a dyke she discusses her frustration of the use of the word not the word itself. She explains emotional correctness is the tone in which you voice your opinions, and that if you want people to change you need to give them a reason to listen your view in the first place. And the only way of doing that is through emotional correctness.

I think what I found most interesting about this talk was the simplicity in what Sally is trying to explain; it seems so obvious yet we as a society don’t put this into practice. We spend so much time talking past each other and not enough time talking through our disagreements which makes influencing change  harder than it should be. When listening to this talk it made me think of animal right activitists PETA and there extreme approaches to trying to convert meat-lovers into vegans. But if PETA were to consider this idea of 'emotional correctness' they would work towards finding the common ground with non supporters and exploring ways to build conversations. With the hope that one day people will say I’m not a big fan of animals but I’m a big fan in what PETA stand for.

I think if more brands and individuals put this theory into practice you would see less conflict and an increase in positive change.