Plato was no «totalitarian», and the «Republic» is primarily an allegory

This article on Plato’s «Republic», by the very insightful Prof. John Ubersax, makes a point which cannot be repeated frequently enough, considering how often Plato’s greatest dialogue is misunderstood and misconstrued, even by scholars, namely that the Politeia (the ancient Greek title of this work) is in fact an extended metaphor, dealing with the life…