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July 2002 We should care most about our:
Parent 31% Teacher 3% Friend 6% Spouse 6% Child 27% Self 21% Other 6%	Ending his Crimes and Misdemeanors Woody Allen says that we all need to be loved, as much as possible, when we are born, in order to bear as we grow old the emptiness of the universe. I won't discuss this now, but it seems, if our poll is right, this love is being given indeed, more or less, since gratitude wins the first place and is transformed into an almost equal responsibility towards our children. However, and this is more interesting, initial love is multiplied in love for our children and for ourselves, which means that the real winner of the poll is love's responsibility, not love's gratitude - and this is great. A spouse, a friend and a teacher have to seek (and give) elsewhere the love they need or feel - because they don't care for us like our parents, because we are not responsible for them, like we are for our children, and because we believe they are not ourselves. In agreement with Woody Allen, the voters see as critical time, when caring is most important, the beginning of one's life. But if we treat ourselves like being always in the beginning, why not our spouse, friends and teachers?
June 8, 2002 - July 30, 2002. Total Votes: 275 * Poll reference : https://www.ellopos.net/poll/poll.asp?PollID=11 * Monthly Poll Home

 

May 2002 I wish I knew::
Greek 11% Latin 15% Chinese 12% Russian 7% German 12% French 27% Other 16%	French is at the top - obviously not because of the French literature. Maybe because of the French sound?.. In this preference I hear Nietzsche explaining how great Georges Bizet is compared with Wagner... A surprising 38% goes to the Classics - but I can't think of any other reason why Chinese collects 12%, than the boredom teaching Greek and Latin usually produces and the exotic impression Chinese writing leaves to the Western eye - and these won't reveal a wish capable enough to overcome the various obstacles of learning a language. If this interpretation is correct, adding French to Chinese we have at least a 39% which is really not interested in learning any language whatever...
May 10, 2002 - June 8, 2002. Total Votes: 354 * Poll reference : https://www.ellopos.net/poll/poll.asp?PollID=8

 

April 2002 Religious feasts are:
Ways to approach God 34% God's way to approach us 9% Escapes from boredom 3% Just superstition 8% Faith at its lowest 6% Expressions of hope 20% Other 20%	The first impression this poll gives, is a strongly positive view of religious feasts, since only 11% of the voters clearly deny the main element of a religious feast, namely its reference to a real and existing God.  A feast as an expression of hope, when someone has the alternative of voting for approaching God, is not that positive as it might seem. In this 20% I see mainly a scale that starts from agnosticism and ends to a denial of a real content of a feast - suggesting a more or less vain hope. This way, 11% becomes 31%. It is very interesting, that in the concept of approaching God, only one fourth of the voters see in a feast God's way towards us. This 35% vs 9% suggests God as a far away Being, knowing us - that is, with no interest in knowing us - waiting for us to find him. It also suggests religious feasts as human inventions, which, by itself, is a denial of God, a denial clearer than even that of those who voted for superstition or boredom. Therefore, in spite of the first impression, this poll might reveal an atheism stronger than we think it is, an atheism that reaches the point of corruption, to the degree that it is hidden behind a mask of faith.
March 25, 2002 - May 10, 2002. Total Votes: 183 * Poll reference : https://www.ellopos.net/poll/poll.asp?PollID=7

 

February 2002 A person becomes real by
knowledge 31% power 3% blessing 5% work 4% love 39% freedom 12% recognition 6%	In the way to love and knoweledge, we see freedom as twice crucial than blessing, and only 10% among us want to live in order to work and become famous. Judging by our poll, one imagines that the will to power is only a capricious title of an insane man's book, while we are living in a growing paradise, where 70% of the people see reality in love and knowledge, ready to sacrifice themselves and devote their being to the happiness of communication. Is this an idealised image of ourselves? Do the visitors of this site live in something like Huxley's isolated island, despite of the rest of the world? Or is it just an indication that sometimes we tend to underestimate our culture - a lot better in reality than our faults and criticism claim to be? Whatever is true, maybe the greatest success of Evil would be to convince us that everything is rotten and all hope lost.
Jan 26 - March 6, 2002. Total Votes: 379, Poll reference: https://www.ellopos.net/poll/poll.asp?PollID=5
March 2002 We are in danger because of
Racism 11% Fundamentalism 11% Avarice 4% Cruelty 9% Ignorance 34% Atheism 13% Other 18%	This is a continuation of the previous poll- with very interesting results, in my opinion. I see avarice and cruelty as corresponding with the low percentage of power and work in the previous poll. Atheism as a cause of danger is surprising, compared with the low percentage of blessing in the previous poll. That makes atheism and faith a temporary danger and good respectively, in the way to freedom, knowledge and love - with lack of faith being more dangerous than faith and even freedom is beneficial. Knowledge, then, could also be a manner in which faith to God avoids fundamentalism or racism.  With love as what makes a person real, one would expect that hate, or what equals somehow hate, would be the winner of this poll. This didn't happen however. The 22% of racism and fundamentalism together, even if it becomes 31% by adding cruelty, does not equal the 39% that love had on the previous poll - which means that, according to the voters, knowledge of each other is not generally something that makes us real, but more specifically, the main way to love. Thus, the two polls together may say: start by removing your hope from this world, believe in God, know the world and all men and let this knowledge prepare for you a chance to love.
March 6-25, 2002. Total Votes: 346, Poll reference: https://www.ellopos.net/poll/poll.asp?PollID=6

January 2002 My favorite movie is
La Luna 11% A Perfect World 6% Au Revoir les Enfants 6% Dead Poets Society 43% The Man Without a Face 23% Fanny and Alexander 6% The 400 Blows 5%	All of the movies in this poll, more or less, present a rather hostile world - hostile to love, knowledge, creativity, childhood.  Bergmann projects the struggling to eternity, but even thus without being so desperate as Truffault, for whom even fighting is not possible, Bertolucci finds the antidote in the family, Resnais promises memory as homesickness, Eastwood suggests the pain of the suffering innocence, but without escaping vainness, Weir attacks blind tradition and stupidity with creative and passionate living, Gibson attacks the 'life' of the crowd - so far in the same line with Weir - but with an intimate and permanent relationship.  The decisive difference, I think, with Weir's and Gibson's movies is that they both and only them see in this hostile world a strange creature called a teacher, someone who helps us make the things deep and beautiful - to paraphrase Nietzsche. Isn't this the reason why we overlook Bergmann's or Truffault's directorial excellence?  As for the winners' order, Weir is first, if we guess well the voters' views, because he was modest but real, Gibson is second by betraying his real ambitions, Bertolucci is third by interpreting modesty as mediocrity.
Dec 20, 2001 - Jan 26, 2002. Total Votes: 160 * Poll reference : https://www.ellopos.net/poll/poll.asp?PollID=4 * Related pages : Dead Poets Society,  The Man Without a Face

November-December 2001 Globalization is
knowing each other		The interesting thing about this poll, is that it separates personal knowledge from culture, in a way that the abolishment of cultural identities becomes a presupposition to knowing each other! Even if more people (half of the voters) are interested in the future of the cultural identities in a global environment, than people who care about knowing each other, the second category is five times positive to globalisation, while the first category is only two times (and less) negative to globalisation. That means, that those who are interested in personal contact are a small but more confident and strong group, while the majority, interested more in the image of this contact, is harder to move and passive. Add to this a small but strong group of people thinking about economical justice and you have a hopeful balance, a great balance, in the move to globalisation!
	15%
strangers in the same town
	3%
the rich get richer
	16%
greater income equality
	5%
abolishment of cultural identities
	32%
enhancement of cultural identities
	18%
other
	10%
Oct 24 - Dec 20, 2001. Total Votes: 202 * Poll reference : https://www.ellopos.net/poll/poll.asp?PollID=3 * Related page : Who is afraid of globalization?

 

July-August 2001 Who is the hero of David Copperfield's life?
Dora 9% Mr. Dick 8% Betsey Trotwood 24% Mr. Micawber 13% Agnes 34% Other 12%	July 11- Sep 9, 2001. Total Votes: 636 * Poll reference : https://www.ellopos.net/poll/poll.asp?PollID=1 * Related pages : Who is the hero of David's life? * David Copperfield and the notion of the hero