Here's how the Ayn Rand Institute defines the Objectivist position on esthetics:
Ayn Rand described her own approach to art as “Romantic Realism”: “I am a Romantic in the sense that I present men as they ought to be. I am Realistic in the sense that I place them here and now and on this earth.” The goal of Ayn Rand’s novels is not didactic but artistic: the projection of an ideal man.
Notice any similarities between that and this?
I like writing about heroes [who] don’t wear capes or disguises. You feel like, “Gee, this looks like the real world and feels like the real world—why can’t that be the real world?”
That’s Aaron Sorkin describing his esthetics.
