Rolling Stone: Have you ever read Ayn Rand?
President Obama: Sure.
Rolling Stone: What do you think Paul Ryan's obsession with her work would mean if he were vice president?
President Obama: Well, you'd have to ask Paul Ryan what that means to him. Ayn Rand is one of those things that a lot of us, when we were 17 or 18 and feeling misunderstood, we'd pick up. Then, as we get older, we realize that a world in which we're only thinking about ourselves and not thinking about anybody else, in which we're considering the entire project of developing ourselves as more important than our relationships to other people and making sure that everybody else has opportunity -– that that's a pretty narrow vision. It's not one that, I think, describes what's best in America. Unfortunately, it does seem as if sometimes that vision of a 'you're on your own' society has consumed a big chunk of the Republican Party.
The President spilling the true tea on the nonsense that is Objectivism
I generally follow Libertarian values but Ayn Rand's stuff is pretty extreme. Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. is one of my favorite short stories tho.
The truth. I tried reading Atlas Shrugged several times in high school (there was an annual essay contest for the book that I was always tempted to enter), but every time I found myself returning it to the library before I finished it. The characters are so awful. It's basically Fifty Shades of Grey: Capitalist Hero Edition.
Please just win, Obama.
This was a bit much. Ayn Rand's work isn't just trashy misunderstood teen fodder.