Obama swipes at Paul Ryan's Ayn Rand fandom

President Obama dismissed Ayn Rand, whom Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan said at one point "inspired him," as having "a pretty narrow vision" in an interview with Rolling Stone.

"Well, you'd have to ask Paul Ryan what that means to him," Obama said in the interview. "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."

The president went on to describe Rand's objectivist philosophy — which emphasizes self-interest — as having overtaken the GOP.

"It's not one that, I think, describes what's best in America," Obama said. "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."

In a 2005 speech Ryan said he grew up reading Rand's writing, which included notable novels like Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.

"It taught me quite a bit about who I am and what my value systems are and what my beliefs are," Ryan said. "It's inspired me so much that it's required reading in my office for all my interns and my staff."

Ryan went on to say that "the reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand. And the fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism."

But in an April interview with the National Review, Ryan said that his fandom was an overstated "urban legend."

“I, like millions of young people in America, read Rand’s novels when I was young. I enjoyed them,” Ryan said. “They spurred an interest in economics, in the Chicago School and Milton Friedman. But it’s a big stretch to suggest that a person is therefore an Objectivist.”

Ryan went on to say he rejected Rand's philosophy.

“It’s an atheist philosophy. It reduces human interactions down to mere contracts and it is antithetical to my worldview. If somebody is going to try to paste a person’s view on epistemology to me, then give me Thomas Aquinas, don't give me Ayn Rand," Ryan said.

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