I think one of the problems we end up with is, as you kindly demonstrated, it is very difficult to prove objectivity, and very easy to prove that things can be biased, and subjective. Hence, I’m interested in finding self contradiction, and paradox, in the very position that things, like history, are not objective. Kind of like, if someone says certain things, it’s very hard to prove them wrong, but very easy to prove that the statement is self refuting. I started writing an example, but then googled it, found a list of examples, and in that list are examples that are precisely what I’m looking for, and demonstrate that the position that history is not objective/true is self refuting. lol! Check it out, I bolded the ones most relevant, but the others are fun, too:
“There is no truth” (If there is no truth, then this statement is false, because there would be at least one truth, namely, that there is no truth).
“You should not judge” (This statement is a judgment, and so it refutes itself).
“There is no objective truth” / “Objective truth does not exist”
(Perhaps the most obviously self-refuting claim. Like all self-refuting claims, it can be cross-checked by simply turning the statement on itself. By asking, “Is that statement objectively true?” we can quickly see that the person making the claim believes in at least one objective truth: that there is no objective truth. See the problem?)
“If objective truth does exist, no one could ever know with confidence what it is” / “It’s arrogant to assume you know the truth with certainty”
(Once again, the professor who makes such a claim appears to be confident and certain of one truth: that no one can be confident or certain of the truth! The statement falls on its own sword the moment it is uttered.)
“History is unknowable” (If true, then this very statement would be unknowable. Why? By the time you read this statement and get to the last word, the first two words are already history. Thus, even comprehending this statement implies that at least some things from the past can be known in the present).
“You should be tolerant of views not your own” (Then what about this view, since its different than the view of the one stating it?).
“Language cannot carry meaning” (If language cannot carry meaning, then what about this claim? Is it meaningful?).
“Truth cannot be known” (If so, then how does one know this truth claim?).
“What’s true for you isn’t true for me” (If so, then this claim is only true for the one who makes it and isn’t true for anyone else. If so, then why is the person bothering to make the claim in the first place since he obviously believes it does apply to others?).
“You should not force your morals on others” (Is it okay to force this morality on others?)
“I have freely chosen to embrace determinism” (If determinism is true, then nothing is freely chosen. If you freely choose, then determinism is false).
I’d like to add to this one:
“There is no truth” (If there is no truth, then this statement is false, because there would be at least one truth, namely, that there is no truth).
Applied to history, it escapes the trap apparent in its current formulation, but it falls into the same trap as the one on history, above: “There is no truth in history.” Well, that couldn’t be true, If true, then this very statement would be untrue. Why? By the time you read this statement and get to the last word, the first two words are already history. Thus, even comprehending this statement implies that at least some things from the past can be known as true in the present.
Ditto for every other formulation used by postmodernists, and other self sabotaging historians, such as “There is no objectivity in history.” Self refuting, because the sentence itself wouldn’t be objectively true, by the same logic in the above paragraph, then. And if it were somehow argued, using textual gymnastics, or other silly techniques, that this is true, then it actually makes a great case for other statements, like history, to be true, too!
Essentially, ludicrously broad, sweeping blanket statements that attempt to destroy huge swaths of knowledge typically fail to escape the destruction they themselves seek to cause.
So, can we truly prove history is objective? Maybe. But that’s a really difficult task, and may fall into the many snares laid by people with the opposing view. Hence, we might simply say what we can say with total confidence: the idea that history is never objective/true is self refuting, and the more eel wriggling it does, the more incoherent it becomes, and thus, it is false.