3 ms·

Is it undesirable to aim for objectivity? Zinn seemed to believe it was his job to shape American society not record its history. Reshaping American society ma

• pessimizer 6y ago
  > Is it undesirable to aim for objectivity? It's definitely undesirable to admit the concept is meaningless, then to strive for it. That's just producing propaganda. You know the standards you're going to strive for are arbitrary and just made up of a combination of things you haven't questioned the importance of and things you've decided the importance of, but not only do you cleave to them anyway, but you criticize those who deviate from them as dangerous propagandists. He thought his job was to create a more rational, more just society, and the narrative he used to connect the events described in his sources was a servant to that. That's the same thing that people who claim objectivity claim to be doing, while they write history as the conflicts between the wealthy and royal. Claiming "objectivity" is just claiming that someone would be insane or seditious for daring to question the claimant's premises. Claims that objectivity is real inevitably ends in journalists and writers having to be licensed and approved by the government.