Leo Strauss' influence

Eddie Thomas writes:

Of the charges against the Straussians, the most common perhaps is their belief that many of the classical texts of the Western tradition have two readings: the surface (exoteric) reading and the hidden (esoteric) reading.

Some of my own professors at Notre Dame were what one might call "soft Straussians," and I believe they actually studied under Leo Strauss at the University of Chicago in the 1950s and early '60s. I suppose the principal way in which I've been influenced by Strauss is in having my students read primary texts in my history of political theory courses. There's no substitute for grappling with what Plato or Aristotle or Hobbes or Rousseau actually wrote. There is also much to appreciate in Strauss' trenchant criticism of positivistic approaches to the study of politics, anchored as they are in the peculiarly modern fact/value dichotomy. In my Recent Political Theory class my students read his essay, "What Is Political Philosophy?"

However, I've never found terribly convincing some of the esoteric readings attached to these primary texts. For example, in his interpretive essay on Plato's Republic, Allan Bloom argues that Socrates' advocacy of the communal ownership of property and the community of wives and children is meant tongue-in-cheek, almost as humour. One of my Notre Dame professors concurred in this interpretation.

However, if this were indeed so, why would Aristotle expend so much energy in book II of the Politics arguing against this proposal? Given that he was a student of Plato, I should think he would have been in a pretty good position to know whether or not his mentor's proposal was or was not meant in jest.

Perhaps I've missed something in the corpus of the writings of Strauss and his disciples where this difficulty is dealt with. If so, I'd love for someone to bring it to my attention.