This is a follow-up to my article about Prometheus. Like Prometheus, Pandora and her box are misunderstood. A half-millennium ago, Erasmus translated the Greek story about Pandora’s Box into Latin and replaced jar with the word box. Whether it was a mistaken translation or not, the world uses his translation.

Prometheus created the three immortals, who became the first males in the world. Zeus had no issue with his creation, except Prometheus provided fire to assist his creation. When he did, due to being a caring god, Zeus punished Prometheus.

Zeus had Hermes, one of the Olympian gods, create the first female. The other female goddesses assisted Hermes by completing the creation of Pandora. However, Zeus gave Pandora to Epimetheus as his wife. Zeus’ gift was one of the punishments meted out to Prometheus, Epimetheus’ brother. Prometheus disobeyed Zeus by providing his creation of the three immortals with fire.

Zeus’ gift of Pandora delighted Epimetheus. Nonetheless, Pandora wasn’t with Epimetheus for long as his wife before she opened the jar. Prometheus had warned his brother about the problems with Pandora and the jar. Nevertheless, Pandora took the lid off the box, releasing the winds of evil, pestilence, and curses to the world.

After realizing her curiosity about the box’s contents, Pandora quickly replaced the lid. However, all the hostile forces contaminated the world. Only one thing remained in the jar. And that was hope. Pandora was curious at one level. However, at a more essential level, Pandora could use that curiosity to benefit humanity. Pandora’s Weltanschauung, or worldview, enabled all humans to address the world’s problems.

We still have hope.

There is a critical caveat if one wishes to change the world for the better. George Santayana provided us with two means to utilize hope. He warned us, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Remembering the past means we must learn the past, the good, the bad, and the ugly. That means we need to learn from the past, which doesn’t include rewriting the past or banning books.

The other quote from Santayana also involves learning, “A child educated only at school is an uneducated child.” Travel is essential if you wish to be fully informed. Remaining in one’s backyard handicaps that person’s knowledge base.

Finally, any form of racism or xenophobia is a deterrent to learning. Those supporting white supremacy claim that whites are better than all others. Trump and his acolytes claim they are superior to all others. If one buys into that notion, they will not achieve hope for themselves. More importantly, they will cause problems for others who aren’t into white supremacy, like racial and ethnic minorities, females, ad infinitum.

White supremacy and any form of discrimination indicate that white supremacists feel inferior. That is why they dislike women and minorities. Look at the number of women dealing with Trump as prosecutors, judges, or legal assistants.

Trump nominated 42 US attorneys, and only one was a female. He hired only 27% of females throughout his four years as president.

This is an interesting video from TED.