The issue of objectivity when learning about history - how come history teaching struggles with this?

by sammyjamez

This is more of a response to this post that spurred me to write this because this is a question that has been bugging me for a while.

When I started to look into history a while ago, I used to think that our understanding of history is done with the intention of being as objective as possible and state what actually happened instead of giving our interpretations of what happened or what might have happened or about the people that were involved.

I know that history is not something that is set in stone like a hard science and it is something that is continuously being updated and examined as it involves our understanding of historical events and our interpretations of the different perspectives of historical events as some of the artefacts that also rely upon are documents that were written by the people of that time or written things even after that time has passed like

  • Herodotus who is also known as the Father of Lies because of his perspective of the Greeks on his publication of the Greco-Persian Wars;
  • or the Prose Edda which is one of the only few artifacts that we have about Norse Mythology was written way after the Viking Age has ended and writing was possibly influenced by the Christian influence of the time.

​

But as I delve deeper into my understanding with different parts of human history, I keep on realising more than some of the things that I thought about history were debunked or updated, or some parts of history were overly focused upon while the others were neglected or given little attention

For example:

  • I used to consider Winston Churchill as a hero for his bold leadership during WW2 (especially during the early days of WW2) until I learned about the Bengal famine of 1943
  • Or I used to think of Mother Teresa as that of a saint until I learned about Christopher Hitchens' criticism against her actions including her use of faith healing, the lack of modernisation of her medical services despite the number of funds that she received and so on
  • Or I used to picture Nikola Tesla as this unheard and rejected genius and Edison as this greedy businessman (where before, I used to think that Edison was the genius behind the invention of the lightbulb) but apparently, the reality was more complicated

​

I am getting the impression that is the subject of either politicising history for personal agendas, or from the work of amateur historians whose inaccurate interpretations of history get into pop culture

mikedash

This is a truly vast topic, and one that historians – and indeed outsiders to the profession – argue about constantly; it's rare to find a book on historiography that doesn't include at least a chapter on the issue of objectivity. So there is very definitely more to say. But historians struggle with the concept of being "objective" because it's an absolute in a world, and in a discipline, in which absolutes don't exist.

To get something of a handle on the consequences, and while you're waiting for fresh answers to your question, you might like to check out some existing resources here on AskHistorians, starting with this recent note of mine:

Unbiased history sources

Monday Methods Discussion Post: Historical Accuracy and historical Authenticity, with u/commiespaceinvader

How important is objectivity in academic historical works? with u/restricteddata