Objective Stories
How Narratives Discipline Themselves Toward Truth
The Two Story Modes
Humans tell two fundamentally different kinds of stories. Both are real stories—with structure, causation, and narrative arc. The difference is which protocols govern their construction and what they're optimized for.
Compelling stories optimize for meaning, connection, and motivation. They work by engaging your cares—making you feel something.
Objective stories optimize for truth-seeking and accuracy. They work by disciplining your biases through systematic protocols.
You need both. The person who lives only in compelling stories is emotionally engaged but reality-untethered. The person who lives only in objective stories is grounded but unmotivated. Wisdom is knowing which mode you're in and when to use which.
This essay explores objective stories—what they are, how they work, and what they risk.
What Makes a Story Objective
An objective story is one that corresponds to reality—not just emotional reality, but external reality that exists independently of how you feel about it.
Objective stories can be checked. They make claims that can be verified or falsified by evidence. They follow logic—if you accept the premises and the reasoning is valid, you should accept the conclusion. They're intersubjectively available—different people examining the same evidence should be able to converge on similar conclusions.
Think of a scientific explanation of how something works. A historical account based on documents and evidence. An investigative journalism piece verifying what actually happened. A medical diagnosis based on symptoms and tests. A legal proceeding weighing evidence to determine responsibility. These are objective stories. They're trying to get reality right, regardless of whether you like what they find.
Objective stories have certain features:
Evidence-based. Claims are grounded in observable data. "This happened" means there's evidence it happened. "This causes that" means there's evidence of the causal relationship.
Logically structured. Arguments follow valid inference patterns. Conclusions follow from premises. Contradictions are treated as problems to resolve, not mysteries to embrace.
Revisable. Objective stories update when evidence changes. If new data contradicts the current story, the story changes—that's not failure, that's working correctly.
Independent of preference. What you want to be true doesn't affect what is true. An objective story doesn't care about your feelings; it cares about accuracy.
Objectivity as Method, Not State
Here's a crucial clarification: objectivity is a practice, not a guarantee.
No human achieves perfect objectivity. We all have biases, blind spots, limitations. The objective storyteller doesn't claim to have transcended human subjectivity. They claim to be using methods designed to compensate for it.
Stephen Ward calls this "pragmatic objectivity": the attempt to provide a fair, comprehensive, and well-evidenced account according to the best currently available standards. It's the same fallible but reasonable objectivity used in medicine, law, and scientific inquiry.
Key features of pragmatic objectivity:
Fallibilist: Error is always possible; claims are provisional
Procedural: Fair methods matter, not guaranteed outcomes
Social: Standards are maintained by communities, not individuals
Historical: Standards evolve as we learn better methods
Practical: What disciplined inquiry can actually achieve
Doctors don't achieve perfect diagnosis. Scientists don't reach absolute truth. Lawyers don't guarantee justice. All pursue reliable judgment through disciplined method—and accept that they'll sometimes be wrong. That's not failure of objectivity; that's what objectivity actually looks like in practice.
The Four Major Protocols
Humans have developed several institutional protocols for constructing objective stories—systematic methods for disciplining natural bias toward truth-seeking. Each protocol serves different domains and employs different mechanisms, but all share the goal of getting closer to reality than unaided intuition could.
Protocol 1: The Scientific Method
Domain: Stories about how the physical and natural world works
Core mechanism: Hypothesis testing through controlled observation and experiment
Science constructs stories about causation and mechanism—how things work, why they behave as they do, what will happen under specified conditions. These stories must survive systematic challenge.
Key features:
Hypothesis formation: Propose an explanation that makes testable predictions
Controlled testing: Design observations or experiments that could falsify the hypothesis
Replication: Others must be able to repeat the test and get similar results
Peer review: Claims are evaluated by other experts before acceptance
Cumulative progress: Knowledge builds on previous findings
The discipline: Scientists don't get to choose which results to report. They must share methods so others can check. Falsified hypotheses must be abandoned or modified. The community enforces standards that individuals might evade.
Characteristic story form: "Here's what we observed. Here's what we hypothesized. Here's how we tested it. Here's what we found. Here's what it means—provisionally, pending further investigation."
What it guards against: Wishful thinking, confirmation bias, argument from authority, unfalsifiable claims.
Protocol 2: Journalistic Standards
Domain: Stories about what happened—events, actions, statements
Core mechanism: Verification discipline through source checking and documentation
Journalism constructs stories about events in the world—what happened, who did what, what was said. These stories must survive scrutiny of their evidential basis.
Key features:
Multiple sources: No single source is sufficient; claims need independent confirmation
Documentation: When possible, obtain documentary evidence, not just testimony
Attribution: Make clear where information comes from
Fairness: Seek response from those portrayed; represent accurately
Independence: Avoid conflicts of interest; disclose when they exist
Transparency: Show your work; explain your methods
The discipline: Journalists don't get to publish unverified claims as fact. They must check before publishing. Sources must be evaluated for reliability. The question "How do you know that?" must have an answer.
Characteristic story form: "Here's what happened. Here's how we know. Here's what different parties say about it. Here are the documents. Here's what remains uncertain."
What it guards against: Rumor, propaganda, single-source error, deliberate deception, motivated framing.
Protocol 3: The Judicial Process
Domain: Stories about responsibility, guilt, and justice
Core mechanism: Adversarial testing through structured opposition
The legal system constructs stories about what happened and who bears responsibility. Unlike science (which seeks consensus through collaboration) or journalism (which seeks accuracy through verification), law institutionalizes opposition. Each side presents its strongest case; truth emerges from collision.
Key features:
Burden of proof: The claiming party must provide evidence; the accused doesn't have to prove innocence
Presumption of innocence: Starting assumption favors the defendant
Rules of evidence: Standards govern what can be considered and what's excluded
Cross-examination: Claims must survive hostile questioning from motivated opponents
Standards of certainty: Different standards for different stakes (preponderance vs. reasonable doubt)
Procedural fairness: Both sides get opportunity to present their case
The discipline: Claims get tested by someone motivated to find flaws. It's not enough to construct a plausible story; you must construct one that survives your opponent's best efforts to demolish it.
Characteristic story form: "The prosecution claims X, based on this evidence. The defense responds Y, challenging that evidence. The jury must decide whether the prosecution's story is proven beyond reasonable doubt."
What it guards against: One-sided narratives, untested claims, abuse of power, conviction of the innocent.
The deeper insight: As legal philosopher H.L. Ho puts it: "The court must not only find the truth to do justice, it must do justice in finding the truth." Truth-seeking institutions must balance accuracy with other values: privacy, dignity, fairness, protection of the vulnerable.
Protocol 4: The Phenomenological Method
Domain: Stories about lived experience and direct awareness
Core mechanism: Disciplined attention to what's actually given in experience
Phenomenology constructs stories about subjective experience—what it's like to perceive, feel, think, exist. Unlike the other protocols, its data is first-person experience itself. But it still imposes discipline.
Key features:
Bracketing (epoché): Suspend assumptions about what experience "really" is; attend to what's directly given
Description before explanation: Carefully describe the phenomenon before theorizing about it
Attention to structure: Look for the essential features of experience, not just incidental content
Intersubjective checking: Compare descriptions with others to identify shared structures
The discipline: You don't get to assume you already know what your experience is. You must actually attend to it carefully, suspending habitual interpretations. The question "What is actually given here, before I interpret it?" is harder than it sounds.
Characteristic story form: "When I attend carefully to this experience, here's what I find. Not what I expected to find, or what theory says I should find, but what's actually there when I look."
What it guards against: Theoretical prejudice, inattention, habitual interpretation, mistaking interpretation for direct experience.
The Common Thread
Despite their differences, all four protocols share essential features:
They impose constraints on the storyteller. You don't get to construct any story you like. The protocols limit what counts as valid, what evidence is required, what methods must be used.
They make claims checkable. Objective stories generate predictions or implications that can be tested. If the story is wrong, there's a way to find out.
They welcome challenge. The scientific community, the newsroom, the courtroom, the phenomenological seminar—all create spaces where claims get questioned. Challenge is not threat; it's quality control.
They update on evidence. When evidence contradicts the story, the story must change. Resistance to revision is a sign that something has gone wrong.
They're social. No individual achieves objectivity alone. Standards are maintained by communities that hold each other accountable. Objectivity is a collective achievement, not a personal virtue.
The Risks of Objective Stories
Objective stories are essential. Without them, we'd have no way to distinguish reality from wishful thinking. We'd believe whatever felt good. We'd be vulnerable to every manipulation that knew how to push our emotional buttons.
But objective stories, by themselves, have limitations.
Sterility
Objective stories can be accurate and unmotivating. You can know true things about climate change, inequality, or disease and not be moved to do anything about it. Facts don't automatically generate caring. The person with only objective stories may understand the world but feel no stake in it.
False Neutrality
"Objectivity" can become cover for cowardice—refusing to say that some things are better or worse, that some claims are supported and others aren't, that some positions deserve more weight than others. False balance—treating every perspective as equally valid—isn't objectivity. It's abdication.
Missing What Can't Be Systematized
Some knowledge doesn't fit neatly into objective protocols. Wisdom about how to live. Insight into what matters. Understanding of particular persons in their uniqueness. The protocols are powerful for what they capture, but they don't capture everything worth knowing.
The Hubris of Claiming Objectivity
Sometimes "I'm being objective" really means "I don't notice my biases." The claim to objectivity can become shield against self-examination. True objectivity includes recognizing the limits of one's own objectivity.
The Integration: Objective AND Engaged
The mature relationship with objective stories isn't worship—it's integration.
Use objective stories for what they're good for: Getting closer to truth. Checking compelling stories against reality. Protecting against manipulation. Building reliable knowledge. Making decisions grounded in evidence.
But don't expect them to provide meaning: Objective stories tell you what's true. They don't tell you what to care about. Meaning, purpose, motivation—these come from compelling stories, from values, from what engages your heart.
Connect objectivity to caring: The best objective inquiry is driven by genuine caring. Scientists who care about curing disease pursue truth rigorously because they care. Journalists who care about democracy verify facts because truth matters for what they value. Objectivity serves purposes; it doesn't replace them.
Find stories that are both grounded AND compelling: The goal isn't cold objectivity or warm delusion. It's accuracy that connects to what matters—truth that you also care about, knowledge that motivates action.
The person who can pursue truth rigorously while staying connected to why truth matters has integrated objective and compelling modes. They're not less caring for being accurate—they're more effectively caring, because their care is grounded in reality.
Practical Applications
How do you evaluate whether a story is genuinely objective or merely claiming to be?
Ask for evidence. What's the basis for this claim? Can it be checked? Would others examining the same evidence reach similar conclusions?
Check for independent confirmation. Has this been verified by others who don't have a stake in it? One source isn't enough.
Look for openness to revision. What would change their mind? If nothing could, that's not objectivity—it's dogma dressed up in objective clothing.
Consider whose perspective is centered. Every story has a point of view. Objective stories try to account for this and correct for it. Does this story acknowledge its perspective, or pretend to have none?
Evaluate the protocol. Is this a scientific claim? Apply scientific standards. Is this journalism? Apply journalistic standards. Is this a legal claim? Apply legal standards. Don't accept "I'm being objective" as substitute for actual disciplined method.
Notice your own reactions. Are you accepting this story because it confirms what you already believe? Are you rejecting it because it threatens something you care about? Your emotional responses are data—about you, not necessarily about the story's accuracy.
Related Essays:
Narrative Minds and Conscious Authorship
Compelling Stories: How Narratives Move Us
Sources:
Godfrey-Smith, Peter. Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science. University of Chicago Press, 2003.
Ho, H.L. A Philosophy of Evidence Law: Justice in the Search for Truth. Oxford University Press, 2008.
Kovach, Bill and Tom Rosenstiel. The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect. Crown, 2021.
Kovach, Bill and Tom Rosenstiel. Blur: How to Know What's True in the Age of Information Overload. Bloomsbury, 2010.
Ward, Stephen J.A. The Invention of Journalism Ethics: The Path to Objectivity and Beyond. McGill-Queen's University Press, 2004.
Zinsser, William. On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction. HarperCollins, 2006.