Monday, November 29, 2010

Fiction: "University Professor Declares Conservatism 'Mental Illness'"

On November 13, 2010, "Ulsterman" published an article at Newsflavor with the title "University Professor Declares Conservatism “Mental Illness." This is an excerpt:
Canadian professor and devoted naturalist Jan Wendt of Canada’s Mount Royal College has long been perplexed by the seeming indifference self-proclaimed conservatives have toward the environment...

Wendt’s study consisted of nearly 200 surveys conducted over the course of three months. Data was compiled, assessed, and ultimately categorized. Where self described liberal particapants rated such concepts as empathy and caring as high, their conservative counterparts rated those qualities low on the overall scale.

According to Professor Wendt, “By almost any sociological scale, liberals would be viewed as far more healthy and nurturing examples while conservatives clearly show higher degrees of anger and selfishness. They appear to suffer from a form of mental illness. This then leads to the statement that conservatives are in fact emotionally unbalanced. Some might call them crazy, but I feel that is too demeaning a term. But less than emotionally sound, yes, this study appears to confirm that. Society must continue to educate and develop more empathy and awareness in our younger people so that eventually, conservatism will be a concept or state of mind that will ultimately become extinct, much like we hope to see with other highly negative emotional manifestations such as racism and greed.”

Professor Wendt’s study is scheduled for publication in the Canadian Journal of Naturalism in spring of 2011.

The full article can be seen at http://mrscottyl.blogspot.com/2010/11/university-professor-declares.html .

There is no Professor Jan Wendt at Mount Royal University. There is also no such publication as the Canadian Journal of Naturalism. If there was, a sociological study on partisan belief would not be published in a naturalism journal.

Jan Wendt is a fictional creation of "Ulsterman," and so are all the quotes he attributes to her. And not only is the interview with her a complete fabrication, but the photograph that "Ulsterman" attached to the "interview" was taken from a stock photo website.

This was the one article I contacted "Ulsterman" about before going public about his fabrications. He promptly scrubbed it from Newsflavor.

4 comments:

  1. Wrongon, munsterwoman
    There is a Mount Royal University.
    http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/2010/11/26/old-and-new-birthers-skepticism-about-obamas-birth-eligibility-spreads/#comment-19116
    AND,
    There is a magazine called The Canadian Field-Naturalist.
    http://www.ofnc.ca/cfn/index.php

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  2. Coincidentally, I found a Jan Wendt here and guess waht the title was……..Media Web Symposium.
    http://www.fokus.fraunhofer.de/en/fokus_events/fame/mediawebsymposium2010/program/detailed/index.html
    * MEDIA WEB SYMPOSIUM 2010
    * DETAILED PROGRAM

    The most negative that can be said of Ulsterman was that he made some sloppy notes and had the name wrong.
    So, there is a Media Services Institute and there is a Jan Wendt that is connected with the media business enough to be a speaker at a convention.

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  3. I'm impressed at how you can be simultaneously so adamant and yet so obviously wrong.

    1) "Wrongon, munsterwoman
    There is a Mount Royal University."

    I didn't say there wasn't. I said there was no Jan Wendt at Mount Royal University. I'm sorry you can't read.

    I would note, however, that Ulsterman's scrubbed article did not refer to "Mount Royal University." It referred to "Mount Royal College." *That* was sloppy.

    2) "There is a magazine called The Canadian Field-Naturalist."

    That's swell. There are also many other nature journals. But the journal identified in Ulsterman's scrubbed article was "the Canadian Journal of Naturalism," which is still a made-up publication.

    3) "Coincidentally, I found a Jan Wendt here and guess waht the title was……..Media Web Symposium."

    If you'd clicked on the link in her name, you'd be sent to this page. *That* "Jan Wendt" is a German tech marketer, not a Canadian naturalist. Moreover, as clearly evidenced by the picture accompanying the bio, the Jan Wendt at that conference IS A MAN.

    Also, I see you completely glossed over Ulsterman's use of a stock photo to depict "Jan Wendt." And, of course, his own scrubbing of the article after being called out over it being fake.

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  4. Munsterwoman said...
    I'm impressed at how you can be simultaneously so adamant and yet so obviously wrong.


    lol your impressed?


    not me - par for the course i say -


    in fat i'd even to go so far and say - the comments are so badly sourced from this commenter (eztalk) i suspect its ulsterman trying to clean up his mess.

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