In the recording of history, it is impossible to be objective.

In the recording of history, it is impossible to be objective.

4:25-4:55

History is the record of past events. The recording of history is considered to be subjective because people interpret historical events with multiple points of view. Often times, raw emotion may alter the subjectivity of recording history and form bias. Subjective recordings are often very influential to the significance of the event and speculate if the event really occurred. Subjectivity is a two way street with bias or credibility.

First consider a situation in which, the recording of history is impossible to be subjective. In many instances, it is very hard to refrain from recording history with pre-conceived notion and emotions of the person as well as of society. In many historical cases, vague items and feelings of patriotism leads to a skewed accounts of the situation. For example, in the history on the division of India and Pakistan, the history books for both the nations contradict each other. Indian books support the views of Indian National Congress at the time and condemned Mohammed Ali Jinnah who was thought to be primarily responsible for the drift between the nations. Indian books tend to quote and exemplify, the cause of the divide by Jinnah. Jinnah was the head of the Muslim league under the Indian National Congress. He was a strong supporter for the non-cooperation movement but he saw that many Muslims’ demands were not met by Gandhi’s party. Hence it is evident that India accuses Jinnah for his selfish motives to become the father of Pakistan. On the other hand, Pakistan's history books praise Jinnah for the liberty they received from the clutches under Gandhi and Indian Congress that bounded their freedoms. The biases are clearly seen in the case. The books from each nation contains quotes and references from supporters of the ideas that authors wanted to pen down, despite the fact that the presence of both the ideas at the time indicates a very grey situation with a lot of bias.

On the other hand, consider a situation in which, the recording of history is very subjective. For example, the significant destruction of the twin towers on September 11th 2001 was recorded by numerous video cameras and transmitted to every television set in the United States of America and internationally. Each national broadcasting corporation transmitted this video on this day, allowing for a significant number of third party observers. Although the intentions surrounding the towers’ destruction can be debated, the fact that this event occurred cannot. It was objectively recorded by multiple camera’s and broadcasted nationally and internationally. Thus, the widely known 9/11 event can be considered an objective recording of history. Likewise, the existence and subsequent extinction of dinosaurs is clearly documented by historians and paleontologists alike. Radioactive carbon dating and other techniques have pieced together the evidence of dinosaur fossils for existence as well extinction. Scientific experiments were conducted on fossil remains to estimate the date of extinction of dinosaur species. Thus museum exhibits and scientific publications have made the account of dinosaur existence and extinction more credible and objective.

In all, it is circumstantial when a historical reading is objective or not. When preconceived notions and bias such as religious  or national superiority come in the way of historical reading then it is hard to be objective. This has been shown by the two sided story of India’s divide. India blames Jinnah for the divide into Pakistan for selfish motives, preaching Islam superiority and desire to become father Pakistan nation. Whereas, Pakistan blames Gandhi for not giving into demands of Muslims under the non-cooperation movement. However when there are multiple forms of objective recording by 3^rd parties, such as television and radioactive analysis of September 11 and dinosaur extinction respectively the objectivity is easily verified with no controversy.