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But isn't Zinn's intention still to achieve truth? He just believes that to do so one must take into account the current state of the world, and biases in colle

But isn't Zinn's intention still to achieve truth? He just believes that to do so one must take into account the current state of the world, and biases in collective understanding, and that's why his works were in reaction to the lack of bottom-up historical analysis of his day. From Zinn's point of view, that part of "the truth" was underrepresented at the time. I mean, his autobiography is titled "You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train", so I had the impression that Zinn cautioned against attempts at objectivity/neutrality because it often serves the status quo, and actually hides the truth, not because "he believes he serves a higher value than truth," as you say. At a high level, this seems pretty uncontroversial to me, blind pursuit of "objectivity/neutrality" is not uncommon, and often leads to false equivalences, perpetuates misinformation, and results in real societal harm. For example, see the framing of "the climate change debate" in popular media for decades. Furthermore, in such cases, some parties may passively benefit from such "neutrality", or even actively play a part in creating such a framing in bad faith. Therefore, if you believe that you exist at a point in time when the oppressed have not had their side of history told, and your aim is to reach "the truth", whether for the sake of greater understanding or for the benefit of society, then it follows that you would need to counterbalance existing biases and even strategize against bad actors to reach the "truth". It's entirely understandable then, that Zinn's attempts at bottom-up history would be valuable in their time, but if successful they would lose their significance, and their flaws would be more apparent, as new works would build upon, correct, and challenge them. In that sense, I find Zinn similar to figures like Rachel Carson, who's work was revolutionary in her time, but today would be easy to find flaws in, dissect, and dismiss, but only because we have a better understanding of environmental issues and phenomena. Anyway, my point is just that it doesn't seem fair to me to say that Zinn believed he served a "higher value than truth," it's not so simple.

tbihl 6y ago
Well, first I'll say that it does seem fair to say that when he tells you himself. But, it turns out there's more to the quote. " I was not going to be an objective historian, because I didn’t really believe objectivity was possible, nor was it desirable—unless objectivity meant telling the truth as you saw it, not lying, not distorting, not omitting information, and not omitting arguments because they don’t conform to some idea that you have. But if objectivity meant not taking a stand, if objectivity meant presenting data without caring about the social effect of the kind of data you present, at that—I didn’t want that kind of objectivity." So, the beginning of the quote, which was the basis of the comment I answered, was an excerpt which suggested that he didn't believe in truth. The full quote shows that he was attempting to redefine the word 'objectivity' in order to make himself sound like an iconoclast, and in doing so declare that the general group of historians are shills. So, in a sense, his description of the historians of human history is like the one you've mentioned about Carson in your penultimate paragraph: he finds them easy to attack from his convenient position of hindsight.

tbihl 6y ago

Well, first I'll say that it does seem fair to say that when he tells you himself. But, it turns out there's more to the quote. " I was not going to be an objective historian, because I didn’t really believe objectivity was possible, nor was it desirable—unless objectivity meant telling the truth as you saw it, not lying, not distorting, not omitting information, and not omitting arguments because they don’t conform to some idea that you have. But if objectivity meant not taking a stand, if objectivity meant presenting data without caring about the social effect of the kind of data you present, at that—I didn’t want that kind of objectivity." So, the beginning of the quote, which was the basis of the comment I answered, was an excerpt which suggested that he didn't believe in truth. The full quote shows that he was attempting to redefine the word 'objectivity' in order to make himself sound like an iconoclast, and in doing so declare that the general group of historians are shills. So, in a sense, his description of the historians of human history is like the one you've mentioned about Carson in your penultimate paragraph: he finds them easy to attack from his convenient position of hindsight.