Why is complete objectivity difficult to achieve in historical writing?

Achieving complete objectivity in historical writing is widely considered difficult, if not impossible, due to the inherent nature of the historian's task. While historians rely on documentation and accuracy, several factors complicate the pursuit of a purely neutral account:

• Selection and Significance: Historians must select from a vast mass of material. The act of determining which events or facts are important is not inherent in the data itself but depends on the historian's own critical standards and judgment.1
• Evaluative Language: The vocabulary used to describe human motives and characteristics is inherently evaluative. Because historians must appraise these human elements, some degree of value judgment is often unavoidable.1
• Cultural and Personal Predilections: A historian’s conceptualization of data and their principles of argument can be influenced by their own cultural background or political and moral standpoints. These subjective influences often lead to disputes over the "true" causes of events, such as wars or revolutions, which cannot be resolved through empirical evidence alone.1

While the ideal of an objective, value-free history remains a theoretical goal, it is generally viewed as an unrealizable practical objective.1