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So when I do my job, people hate me.
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In fact, the better I do my job,
-
the more people hate me.
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And no, I'm not a meter maid,
-
and I'm not an undertaker.
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I am a progressive lesbian talking head
-
on Fox News. (Applause)
-
So y'all heard that, right? Just to make sure, right?
-
I am a gay talking head on Fox News.
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I am going to tell you how I do it
-
and the most important thing I've learned.
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So I go on television.
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I debate people who literally want to obliterate
-
everything I believe in, in some cases,
-
who don't want me and people like me to even exist.
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It's sort of like Thanksgiving
with your conservative uncle
-
on steroids,
-
with a live television audience of millions.
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It's totally almost just like that.
-
And that's just on air.
-
The hate mail I get is unbelievable.
-
Last week alone, I got 238 pieces of nasty email
-
and more hate Tweets than I can even count.
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I was called an idiot, a traitor, a scourge,
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a cunt, and an ugly man,
-
and that was just in one email.
-
(Laughter)
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So what have I realized,
-
being on the receiving end of all this ugliness?
-
Well, my biggest takeaway is that for decades,
-
we've been focused on political correctness,
-
but what matters more is emotional correctness.
-
Let me give you a small example.
-
I don't care if you call me a dyke. I really don't.
-
I care about two things.
-
One, I care that you spell it right.
-
(Laughter) (Applause)
-
Just quick refresher, it's D-Y-K-E.
-
You'd totally be surprised.
-
And second, I don't care about the word,
-
I care about how you use it.
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Are you being friendly? Are you being naive?
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Or do you really want to hurt me personally?
-
Emotional correctness is the tone, the feeling,
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how we say what we say,
-
the respect and compassion we show one another.
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And what I've realized is that political persuasion
-
doesn't begin with ideas or facts or data.
-
Political persuasion begins with
being emotionally correct.
-
So when I first went to go work at Fox News,
-
true confession,
-
I expected there to be marks in the carpet
-
from all the knuckle-drugging. Right?
-
That, by the way, in case you're paying attention,
-
is not emotionally correct.
-
But liberals on my side, we can be self-righteous,
-
we can be condescending,
-
we can be dismissive of anyone
who doesn't agree with us.
-
In other words, we can be politically right
-
but emotionally wrong.
-
And incidentally, that means that
-
people don't like us. Right?
-
Now here's the kicker.
-
Conservatives are really nice.
-
I mean, not all of them,
-
and not the ones who send me hate mail,
-
but you would be surprised.
-
Sean Hannity is one of the sweetest guys
-
I've ever met.
-
He spends his free time
-
trying to fix up his staff on blind dates,
-
and I know that if I ever had a problem,
-
he would do anything he could to help.
-
Now, I think Sean Hannity is
-
99 percent politically wrong,
-
but his emotional correctness
is strikingly impressive,
-
and that's why people listen to him.
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Because you can't get anyone to agree with you
-
if they don't even listen to you first.
-
We spend so much time talking past each other
-
and not enough time talking
through our disagreements,
-
and if we can start to find
compassion for one another,
-
then we have a shot at building common ground.
-
It actually sounds really hokey
-
to sort of say it standing up here,
-
but when you try to put it in practice,
-
it's really powerful.
-
So someone who says they hate immigrants,
-
I try to imagine how scared they must be
-
that their community is changing
from what they've always known.
-
Or someone who says they
don't like teachers unions,
-
I bet they're really devastated to see
-
their kid's school going into the gutter,
-
and they're just looking for someone to blame.
-
Our challenge is to find the compassion for others
-
that we want them to have for us.
-
That is emotional correctness.
-
I'm not saying it's easy.
-
An average of, like, 5.6 times per day
-
I have to stop myself from responding
-
to all of my hate mail with a flurry of vile profanities.
-
This whole, you know, sort of finding compassion
-
and common ground with your enemies thing
-
is kind of like a political-spiritual practice for me,
-
and I ain't the Dalai Lama.
-
I'm not perfect, but what I am is optimistic,
-
because I don't just get hate mail.
-
I get a lot of really nice letters, lots of them.
-
And one of my all-time favorites begins,
-
"I am not a big fan of your political leanings
-
or your sometimes tortured logic"
-
— (Laughter) —
-
"but I'm a big fan of you as a person."
-
Now this guy doesn't agree with me,
-
yet.
-
(Laughter)
-
But he's listening, not because of what I said,
-
but because of how I said it,
-
and somehow, even though we've never met,
-
we've managed to form a connection.
-
That's emotional correctness,
-
and that's how we start the conversations
-
that really lead to change.
-
Thank you.
-
(Applause)
Brian Greene
The English transcript was updated on 3/30/2017.