Why do Leftists Have Less Self-Control?

MayCaesar

I would challenge the authors' characterization of what they are describing as "self-control". My argument will be based on an interesting observation: in STEM fields Asian and Indian students tend to significantly outperform most other groups, but the top achievers in those fields are much more commonly people who have grown up in Western countries.

The authors loosely define "self-control" as the ability to abide by certain rules in the face of temptations by short-term pleasures. Asian and Indian students who grew up in traditional families are frequently conditioned to work hard on their academic tasks, to not get distracted by drugs, alcohol and parties. To just keep grinding it. This is perfect for maximizing commonly used academic metrics such as the GPA, or the number of publications, or the number of courses successfully completed... This, however, does not get you much further than that. You become a perfect task executor, but you do not know much about how to pick the right tasks, so you outsource task-mastery to someone else.

To get on top of an academic field, much more than this is needed. Inspiration must be given free flow, endless experimentation and risk-taking is necessary. When you express an interesting research idea, your supervisors should be able to recognize its potential and say, "Let us see where this leads us", rather than in a typically conservative and elitist way say, "Just do the usual thing, do not get side-tracked".

This would explain why Japan, China and Korea, despite having incredible academic metrics, do not have Google-s, Tesla-s or Amazon-s (they do have companies inspired by these, but very few of them themselves set a new trend). That would also explain why the cities in which such innovative companies are located are mostly dominated by liberals/libertarians, not conservatives. Next Google will not emerge in Indiana or Wyoming, but in California or New York. There are exceptions such as Texas and Florida, but those states are not exactly classic conservative states where the predominant culture expects you to focus on preserving tradition and family values.

The perfect mixture appears to be a solid immutable foundation upon which experimentation is encouraged. A person who has the ability to work hard under pressure and keep grinding it, but also lets his mind wander. Chaos on top of order. An inventor can do heavy drugs and get a wild idea, then map it onto reality and build something incredible. An artist can get drunk and sleep with a lesbian couple, then in the morning have an idea for a painting no one else has drawn and get to hard work. That requires high risk-tolerance, adventureness, curiosity and, certainly, critical thinking. Conservatism is anything but that: it is about shrinking and holding on to the present, hoping that the future will not be too different from it.

Conservatism would be great for building stable and orderly societies, but it is going to stifle innovation and cause stagnation. It is 1100 years of Byzantine Empire with virtually no cultural, social or economical progress. The empire is stable, but not much is going on in it. Humans can live there, but human spirit is extinguished.
Manhattan may be strangled by autocrats in charge, but that is still where you go if you want to do something serious in finance. You do not go to Knoxville. Internationally, you go to wacky cities of sin like Tokyo, Hong-Kong, Bangkok or Amsterdam; you do not go to orderly Moscow, Warsaw, Beijing or Riyadh.

just_sayin

@MayCaesar
Thanks for adding to the discussion.  

I would challenge the authors' characterization of what they are describing as "self-control". My argument will be based on an interesting observation: in STEM fields Asian and Indian students tend to significantly outperform most other groups, but the top achievers in those fields are much more commonly people who have grown up in Western countries.

According to American Economic Association

White high school students spend almost 6 hours per week doing homework and studying. Asian high school students spend an astounding13. 4 hours on homework, 7.5 hours more per week than white students. Black students spend only 3.2 hours per week on homework and Hispanic students spend 5.25 hours per week.

I would think that the extra time studying would account for much of the academic success.  This does take self-control and intentionality.  Since 6 in 10 Asians vote Democrat though, it does not seem to match the data.  In fact, if Asians are skewing the numbers it would seem that without them, leftists test scores would be less.  This doesn't seem to account for conservatives higher test scores or the 3 studies on self-control tests.  

Now, correlation does not mean causation.  That's true.  You haven't speculated why you think conservatives perform better, even when intelligence is taken into account though.

The authors loosely define "self-control" as the ability to abide by certain rules in the face of temptations by short-term pleasures. Asian and Indian students who grew up in traditional families are frequently conditioned to work hard on their academic tasks, to not get distracted by drugs, alcohol and parties. To just keep grinding it. This is perfect for maximizing commonly used academic metrics such as the GPA, or the number of publications, or the number of courses successfully completed... This, however, does not get you much further than that. You become a perfect task executor, but you do not know much about how to pick the right tasks, so you outsource task-mastery to someone else.

You seem to suggest that leftists are more creative.  Most of the research I saw showed mixed results and was incredibly subjective.  Do you have any sources for the claim?  

Also, what's your opinion on if leftist beliefs such as intersectionality and determinism have helped or hurt leftists in their achievements?

Dreamer

There could be many confounding factors. I haven't deeply researched the authors or anything. Conservatives tend have more wealth which could lead to more belief in the status quo. Some liberals have the attitude that the system is rigged the top 10% control most of the wealth, so why bother to focus on grades?

 Or it could mean more money buys access to tutors, textbooks, and reliable transportation. If a student can't afford a textbook and finally manage to scrape together enough to buy the textbook halfway through the semester low income students are at a disadvantage. 

MayCaesar

@just_sayin

Well, as I explained, in my view this is precisely why conservatives obtain higher test scores and grades: because they are taught to be more persistent and to work hard for expended periods of time, rather than let their mind wander and perform experiments. I was not like that as a kid: my parents were incredibly libertarian and never forced me to do homework before everything else, while, say, in Asian families it is common for the parents to say, "No games until the homework is done" - and they are very strict in enforcing it. As a result those kids could work for 13+ hours a week, while being miserable (in my observation), but not daring to defy their parents' will - while I would often leave the homework for late at night and then blast through it, skipping parts of it and making mistakes. This did not serve me well in high school and my grades were mediocre - but it turned out perfect for academic research where the ability to generate new ideas and take them somewhere is more important than the ability to do repetitive tasks for hours straight.

Here is some interesting data on the time students spend doing homework in various countries (15-year students, OECD, 2009):
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-who-spend-the-most-time-doing-homework.html
There really does not seem to be any correlation between this and the economical success of the country. China, Russia and Kazakhstan take 3 of the first 4 spots and none of them is particularly wealthy (on the per capita basis). In China students spend over the double the time doing homework compared to Hong Kong, yet Hong Kong (having the same ethnic population as eastern China) puts the rest of China to shame economically. Curiously, in South Korea the number of homework hours was among the lowest, yet the number of work hours is the highest in the world.

Regarding Asian people preferentially voting Democrat, a major issue seems to be immigration. While in practice both parties are pretty bad and protectionist on this, Democratic politicians do a better lip service to prospective immigrants, and many Asian immigrants have close ties to their family at home and seek to help them move to the US. Republicans pushing for harsh H1B quotas really puts them off.
Another issue is religion: naturally, only a small minority of Asians are Christian, and openly pro-Christian rhetoric of the Republican establishment puts them off.
Finally, on the China-Taiwan question Democrats tend to side with China, and Republicans with Taiwan - and it just happens that the number of immigrants from China in the US is much higher than from Taiwan (2.5 million versus 350,000).

just_sayin said:

You seem to suggest that leftists are more creative.  Most of the research I saw showed mixed results and was incredibly subjective.  Do you have any sources for the claim?  

Also, what's your opinion on if leftist beliefs such as intersectionality and determinism have helped or hurt leftists in their achievements?

I do not have any hard data on this, although the consensus among the psychologists seems to exist. It is not that left-leaning people are more creative, but, rather, the personal freedom and chaos that counter-conservatism posits resonates with creative and adventurous people. It makes perfect sense intuitively, does it not? Creative people do not like hard structures and thrive in chaotic conditions. This could also be why the extreme ideologies of the left tend to advocate for radical measures such as violent revolutions: they lead to the most chaotic environments and most rapid changes, in whatever direction.

Naturally, collectivistic ideologies that universities push nowadays are going to affect students' ability to succeed negatively. When someone is taught to rely on their group to take care of them, to think about all the ways in which they are advantaged or disadvantaged and hence are playing a rigged game, to blame someone else for their failures and give credit to someone else for their success... Humans are driven by incentives, and this kind of thinking creates the incentive to feel sorry for oneself or guilty over one's unearned privileges - the exact opposite to excitement and optimism required to succeed in life.

But I think that conservative teachings also have negative impact on people's lives, albeit in a different way. They are not as prominent in the Western academia, for obvious reasons - but I had a taste of them back in Russia. Being told all the time that you must serve some greater cause, that you must thank your country for your success, that you have a debt to it for raising you - all that makes you feel like you are nothing, just a cog in the machine, and nothing you can do is going to make you into a sovereign individual, so why do anything beyond the bare minimum you need to keep moving forward?

It has always seemed to me that left-wing and right-wing ideologies were siblings in this respect: they both are anti-individualistic in that they proclaim that you owe something to something outside of you. Left-wing ideologies claim that you owe something to other people by nature of living among them, while right-wing ideologies claim that you owe something to a higher entity such as your country, or your family, or the god. Neither really acknowledge your sovereignty in a fundamental sense. That really stifles people's enterpreneurial spirit, because everyone is focused on serving someone or something, rather than creating something that at the moment nobody seems to want - by nature of them not being aware that this something even can exist.

jack

just_sayin said:

Why do Leftists Have Less Self-Control

Hello just:

I was firstly offended by your question.  And then, after some thought, I agree with you, only I'd call it something else..  Certainly, when compared to regimented, ram rod, stick up the butt, right wingers, libs are more emotional, and are more empathetic.  You can see that in the legislation we pass, and the issues we take to the streets for.  Is that because we have less control???  Nahh..  It's because we're controlled by different things..  

Plus, when you're in a cult, you think everybody who ISN'T in the cult, has less control than you. 

Just saying..

excon

just_sayin

Dreamer said:

There could be many confounding factors. I haven't deeply researched the authors or anything. Conservatives tend have more wealth which could lead to more belief in the status quo. Some liberals have the attitude that the system is rigged the top 10% control most of the wealth, so why bother to focus on grades?

 Or it could mean more money buys access to tutors, textbooks, and reliable transportation. If a student can't afford a textbook and finally manage to scrape together enough to buy the textbook halfway through the semester low income students are at a disadvantage. 

This was a good post.  I think there could be some validity to the observation that conservatives have more wealth.  I saw a pew survey that showed household income breakdowns:
Less than $30,000 - 27% are Republican, with 50% being Democrat
$30,000 - 49,999 - 39% - are Republican, with 40% Democrat
$50,000 - 99,999 - 45% are Republican, with 43% Democrat
$100,000 and above - 47% are Republican, with 44% being Democrat

However, this could be a case of conservatives self-control leading to higher incomes and not really dispel the argument of the NAS but reinforce it.  Which would also be consistent with the research.  

Working against the theory that leftists are poorer and that's the reason they have less self-control and less educational success is the fact that minority students in Republican cities do much better and have less educational inequity than they do in Democrat run cities.  Since, it seems that income is not a factor in this situation, there does seem to be some validity that leftist beliefs and/or policies negatively impact leftists.  

As Brightbeam found:

Leaders of progressive cities often frame their policy proposals in terms of what’s best for those with the least opportunity and the greatest obstacles — those who have been “left out and left behind,” as the Democratic party states. But, in education, we found the opposite: Students in America’s most progressive cities face greater racial inequity in achievement and graduation rates than students living in the nation’s most conservative cities.

Progressive Cities Have Larger Achievement Gaps Than Conservative Cities
• Progressive cities, on average, have achievement gaps in math and reading that are 15 and 13 percentage points higher than in conservative cities, respectively.
• In San Francisco, for example, 70% of white students are proficient in math, compared to only 12% of black students reaching proficiency — a 58-point gap.
• In Washington, D.C., 83% of white students scored proficient in reading compared to 23 percent of black students — a 60-point gap.
• In contrast, three of the 12 most conservative cities — Virginia Beach, Anaheim and Fort Worth — have effectively closed or even erased the gap in at least one of the academic categories we examined.

...We also looked at other factors that might create strong correlations between larger achievement gaps and progressive cities: the percentage of white students in the city, the per pupil spending, the level of income inequality, and the poverty rate. But controlling for these factors did not erase the correlation between a city’s progressivism and the sizable racialized gaps in educational outcomes.

While economic circumstances can have an effect upon educational obtainment, it does not seem to be the cause of the differences in the studies cited by the National Academy of Sciences.  For instance, the study 

Running on empty: neural signals for self-control failure

"examined the neural processes underlying self-control failure by testing whether controlled, "effortful" behavior impairs subsequent attempts at control by depleting the neural system associated with conflict monitoring."  Income would not have impacted neural activity and processes.  

just_sayin

jack said:

just_sayin said:

Why do Leftists Have Less Self-Control

Hello just:

I was firstly offended by your question.  And then, after some thought, I agree with you, only I'd call it something else..  Certainly, when compared to regimented, ram rod, stick up the butt, right wingers, libs are more emotional, and are more empathetic.  You can see that in the legislation we pass, and the issues we take to the streets for.  Is that because we have less control???  Nahh..  It's because we're controlled by different things..  

Plus, when you're in a cult, you think everybody who ISN'T in the cult, has less control than you. 

Just saying..

excon

You may be right that leftists are more emotional.  They are certainly prone to throw more hissy fits,  sometimes I will watch the YouTube clip of leftists breaking down realizing that Hillary Clinton lost to Trump in 2016 - hot cocoa with salty tears is delicious.  However, if leftists were more compassionate then it should be seen in the number of hours they do in charitable work and in charitable giving.  The exact opposite is true.  Conservatives give more money and more in their time.  From the Seattle Times:

Arthur Brooks, the author of a book on donors to charity, “Who Really Cares,” cites data that households headed by conservatives give 30 percent more to charity than households headed by liberals. A study by Google found an even greater disproportion: Average annual contributions reported by conservatives were almost double those of liberals.
Other research has reached similar conclusions. The “generosity index” from the Catalog for Philanthropy typically finds that red states are the most likely to give to nonprofits, while Northeastern states are least likely to do so.

The Philanthropic Roundtable has tracked this for 30 years or more and always, conservatives are more compassionate in their time and with their money.  

Now, leftists talk more about how compassionate they are, you are right about that, and are more likely to appeal to new government programs, but when it comes to giving their own time and money, they are much more stingy.  

Bogan

Looks pretty simple to me.    “Progressive” cities and states possess a disproportionate number of low IQ people from the usual dysfunctional races, while “conservative” cities and states possess a greater number of high IQ people.     Affirmative Action university admissions saw too many low IQ people from the dysfunctional minorities attend university, where they were just not smart enough to compete in the prestigious STEM courses, so they were relegated to “Artz” courses, especially useless ones like “black studies” and “gender studies” where the all that is needed to obtain a diploma I to toe the left wing party line.  

 The anger and unreasonable behaviour of “Humanities” students is because financially, they are in a pickle.    Many of them borrowed “student loans” money from the government which they are unable to ever pay back.     None of these courses that they enrolled themselves in has much chance of seeing them ever get a job in a free anrket society where their bum degrees mean nothing.   Their only hope of employment is the hope that the government will hire them, or as DEI consultants where they of course will recommend to their employers that they hire people just like themselves.   And so the insanity perpetuates itself. 

 This is not working out too well, as corporations which once shrugged and went along with this DEI insanity, are now realising that they have hired a bunch of low IQ goofs who have no idea about anything, other than to try and change western society so that it will employ more low IQ people from dysfunctional minorities with degrees.     Disney is a sterling example of how a business could be created out of the minds of intelligent entrepreneurs, which got so big, that the guys at the top stopped thinking and just went along with whatever political fashion was prevalent at the time.    They hired a bunch of talentless writers who wrote stories championing THE MESSAGE that were so boring and silly that nobody wanted to watch their crappy movies.     

 Western civilisation is just like Disney.    It may look all powerful and profitable, but all it needs is  few goofs at the top steering the economies in the wrong direction and we are going to end up bankrupt like Disney. 

 On another level, people with high IQ are usually noted for their superior socialisation.     They tend to be polite people with good manners, who know how to behave themselves.     Low IQ people are famous for their emotional instability, their lack of self control, outrageous thrill seeking behaviour, and their belief that they can do anything they like because their cause is just.      

Factfinder

jack said:

just_sayin said:

Why do Leftists Have Less Self-Control

Hello just:

I was firstly offended by your question.  And then, after some thought, I agree with you, only I'd call it something else..  Certainly, when compared to regimented, ram rod, stick up the butt, right wingers, libs are more emotional, and are more empathetic.  You can see that in the legislation we pass, and the issues we take to the streets for.  Is that because we have less control???  Nahh..  It's because we're controlled by different things..  

Plus, when you're in a cult, you think everybody who ISN'T in the cult, has less control than you. 

Just saying..

excon

Hi Jack.

Picture this if you will: The year is 2020. The left has taken to the streets for the precieved injustice of an innocent man, who we all knew in a very short time wasn't innocent. In fact he was a violent man with a criminal history that included an armed home invasion of a pregnant woman. And he'd just committed a crime and that is why the bad cop was there. So a bad cop killed a bad man which resulted in two bad people being taking off the streets. Not pretty. What followed was much worse. You see 2020 happen to be an election year and the man in the white house was despised by all leftists. Back to the leftist in the streets, their "demonstrations" took no less then 24hrs to begin rioting. CNN had reporters on the streets trying to describe the "demonstrations" as peaceful while bricks flew over head and ducking. Very soon after that reports from around the country popping up one after the other. The majority of the large cities controlled by leftists were standing down while the thugs in the streets along side millitant leftists took over major portions. Not only that but they threw their own police forces under the bus. A lot of raping, pilliaging, looting, violence, killing, and citizens were tossed out of their own homes. Now can you tell me was it the lefts "more empathetic" nature that gave all those leftists Mayors and officials such self control to watch their cities burn? Or was it the "different things" you mentioned?

Barnardot

@Bogan ;people with high IQ are usually noted for their superior socialisation.     They tend to be polite people with good manners, who know how to behave themselves.     Low IQ people are famous for their emotional instability, their lack of self control, outrageous thrill seeking behaviour, and their belief that they can do anything they like because their cause is just.      

Well I suppose that as well as so called disfunctional people nod nod wink wink with low IQs there are also people who are so exstream and disfunctional that they only use half of there IQ at any one time and the only functions they do go to are when they do donuts in there pick ups so they can pick up loose chicks and then roast road kill on a fire.

Where I work we knock off thousands of chickens so naturally we tell chicken jokes in our brakes. For example. Why didnt the racialist chicken cross the road. Because it didnt want to see the other side

Barnardot

@Factfinder ;The left has taken to the streets for the precieved injustice of an innocent man

Okay we just need to stand back and analize the hole situation. Sure the guy was a bad ace and weather the cops knew that is beside the point. The point is that no matter what kind of person that guy was the cop went troppo and lost it and killed the guy. It was the cops fault 100% that the guy was killed. And of course all the blacks are going to knee jerk and use the incident to cymbolize what goes on every day when they get picked on. Because they have very little trust in the authorities that treated there moms and dads like shite in the old days like making them go to different schools and use different sides of the road and different toillets. 

I dont think that the innocense was the issue but the built up realty of what has gone on for a long time and that was not preceived at all.

just_sayin

What some have failed to address is that the studies from the National Academy of Sciences deal with are mental processing issues.  They believe these cognitive processing issues are the result of beliefs on free will and choice - with people who have higher views that their choices can change their outcomes performing better on mental tests, and when told that their choices don't matter their performance is worse.  This is much more about measurable cognitive processing than about the failures of leftists in general - though there may be a direct connection to their belief in intersectionality and their reduced cognitive performance.

Factfinder

Barnardot said:

@Factfinder ;The left has taken to the streets for the precieved injustice of an innocent man

Okay we just need to stand back and analize the hole situation. Sure the guy was a bad ace and weather the cops knew that is beside the point. The point is that no matter what kind of person that guy was the cop went troppo and lost it and killed the guy. It was the cops fault 100% that the guy was killed. And of course all the blacks are going to knee jerk and use the incident to cymbolize what goes on every day when they get picked on. Because they have very little trust in the authorities that treated there moms and dads like shite in the old days like making them go to different schools and use different sides of the road and different toillets. 

I dont think that the innocense was the issue but the built up realty of what has gone on for a long time and that was not preceived at all.

You're of course right. That is why it's so pungent that the left used all that built up anxiety and mistrust the way they did. Because two scumbags crossed paths hundreds, perhaps thousands, suffered horrible consequences. Only because people in charge of keeping the peace refused to let the rule of law protect innocent citizens and prevail. It would of been far better to reinforce the positives,... there are no seperate toilets anymore, no more back of the buses... and oh by the way we're throwing the book at him. We don't want him on our team. We aren't the same system that treated your parents like shite and we're working to improve still today... I think you know Barnadot that the left exploited the whole incident for political gain. I know it hurts to face that reality. Just as the right has to face the reality of Trumps ultimate failure, we all must face our demons. Otherwise we can not come together and prevent them from taking control again.

Barnardot

@Factfinder yes quiet right that it is time to use more positive s if the left wants to get more browny points.

Bogan

Factfinder quote   Picture this if you will: The year is 2020. The left has taken to the streets for the precieved injustice of an innocent man, who we all knew in a very short time wasn't innocent. In fact he was a violent man with a criminal history that included an armed home invasion of a pregnant woman. And he'd just committed a crime and that is why the bad cop was there. So a bad cop killed a bad man which resulted in two bad people being taking off the streets. Not pretty. What followed was much worse. You see 2020 happen to be an election year and the man in the white house was despised by all leftists. Back to the leftist in the streets, their "demonstrations" took no less then 24hrs to begin rioting. CNN had reporters on the streets trying to describe the "demonstrations" as peaceful while bricks flew over head and ducking. Very soon after that reports from around the country popping up one after the other. The majority of the large cities controlled by leftists were standing down while the thugs in the streets along side millitant leftists took over major portions. Not only that but they threw their own police forces under the bus. A lot of raping, pilliaging, looting, violence, killing, and citizens were tossed out of their own homes. Now can you tell me was it the lefts "more empathetic" nature that gave all those leftists Mayors and officials such self control to watch their cities burn? Or was it the "different things" you mentioned?

I am beginning to like you, factfinder.

Factfinder

@Bogan

I'm still waiting for the "different things" controlling them answer from @Jack.

just_sayin

What's sad is that SJWs message of Critical Race Theory has convinced many Black kids that it is pointless to try and that they will always be a victim.  When one teaches that personal choices don't matter and that all inequities are caused by racism, then those who believe that message are bound to suffer from the lies they have been taught.

MayCaesar

It is just how it works in life: whatever story one tells himself is the story the evidence of which appears to be everywhere. Someone who believes that his life is awesome, that he is going to achieve everything in the world, that other people are on his side - will focus on events supporting that belief and see other events as exceptions from the rule. In contrary, someone who believes that the world is against him will blow every minor inconvenience out of proportion and dismiss the good things.

There are examples of people who believe that the world is great and their life is awesome, yet who live in civil war-torn territories. There are also examples of people who live in the safest and most prosperous countries in the world and whose families are very wealthy and they have never lacked anything in life - and yet they believe that everything sucks because someone "misgendered" someone.

If you believe that you will never achieve anything in life because of your race, then the self-fulfilling prophecy will hold: you will be oblivious to all the opportunities available to you, and every time something does not go your way (just as it happens in everyone's life), you will attribute it to your race and do not make any adjustments.
If you believe that you are destined for greatness (as I do about myself), then you will see every obstacle as just another challenge to overcome and learn something from, and every time things go your way, you will shrug, "Naturally, how can it be any other way? I am awesome".

That is absolutely universal. And while it is absolutely true that some people may be under circumstances outside of their control that make it very hard to accomplish a particular goal, whether to see it as a problem or a natural state of things to adapt to - is up to them. I will never run as fast as Eliud Kipchoge, make as much money as Elon Musk, and be as charismatic as Jim Carrey in his prime. So what? My life has and will have aspects that neither of these three can even dream of. I do not need $250 billion to be happy and successful. And those people who believe that life sucks because someone has it better/easier than them - will be miserable even if they reach the top in every possible respect. They will then say, "Well, I am not a god yet, so life still sucks".

theinfectedmaster

Argument Topic: I find this argument very offensive.

I'm liberal myself, and I find this argument very offensive. Liberals actually want to protect human rights and fight for social change.

just_sayin

theinfectedmaster said:

I'm liberal myself, and I find this argument very offensive. Liberals actually want to protect human rights and fight for social change.

I think your anger is misplaced.  You should be mad at leftists who have wrongly told Black children that they can't succeed because of the white man. 

What the National Academy of Sciences found in their 3 studies showed that one's beliefs about free will impacted the chemical and processing of the brain.  It makes it more difficult to focus and more likely to give up on tasks. Said the more fun way, 'liberal thinking literally messes up the brain'.  Those who were less likely to believe their choices made a difference performed worse on mental tests that measured how thoughts are processed - this was true no matter a person's politics.  As pointed out earlier, taking into account IQ and prior educational performance, conservatives do much better in college than leftists - this is consistent with a belief that personal choices impact outcomes.  This is just science, and science doesn't care about a person's feelings, nor should research be shaped by another's feelings on a matter.

I am sure that you believe sincerely that you are a good person.  I don't doubt that for a moment.  It is however a fallacy to think that a poor Black child has no agency.  To believe, as CRT says, that all inequities are the result of racism is a dangerous lie.  It is not just factually wrong, but results in Black children giving up in trying to make a better life for themselves.  

So to recap - liberalism literally corrupts the brain, and figurately, it corrupts the mind.