“His premise was simple,” Obama said. “He said, look, the easiest thing in the world to do is to feel cynical, easiest thing in the world is to find refuge in cynicism because there’s so much good reason as you look around to feel dispirited. You open up the newspapers, you watch the news, there’s war, there’s poverty, there ignorance, there’s conflict, there’s famine, there’s strife, and so it’s natural for many of us to at some point say to ourselves, you know what, not much is going to change,” Obama said.

“The world is what it is and it doesn’t make much sense to try to make it different, the best thing we can do is just look after ourselves, and protect our own little circle and make sure that we’re making as much money as we can and pursuing our own private individual dreams but not really have a lot of confidence, a lot of faith in the possibility of collectively transforming the world.”