> Of course, but that shouldn't be an argument to completely dismiss attempts to be less biased. I agree, and I explicitly took this position in my initial rep

> Of course, but that shouldn't be an argument to completely dismiss attempts to be less biased. I agree, and I explicitly took this position in my initial reply. > You achieve lesser bias by constantly doubting and questioning your priors. This is what Zinn was trying to achieve by introducing the parts of history that don't make it into the textbooks. > You establish authority and trust by actively communicating to your reader or interlocutor legitimate doubts people should have of even the position you're offering. I'm not a Zinn or a history expert by any means so this is a bit above my pay grade. All I can say is that from some of Zinn's essays I've read, one of his main points was that you need to be critical of the history you're exposed to and try to understand what the text is trying to accomplish. In Zinn's texts he makes what he's trying to accomplish very clear. > There is no greater smell that you should be concerned about someone's biases than when they present nothing but certainty and when they craft arguments that deliberately elide contradictory or exculpatory evidence. You're absolutely right. This was the major idea Zinn introduced to history in academia. It honestly seems to me like you agree with the central thesis of Zinn's writings. A lot of the criticism I've been reading in this post mirrors the same criticism Zinn had of academic history when he first began writing.