My Mother Is A Fish

Murray Rothbard, “The Noble Task of Revisionism.”

Why study history? The question may gain superficial plausibility among libertarians, being accustomed to the notion that all state apparatuses are bad news. But, of course, the question is crucial in finding out which states committed which crimes, and their relative culpability. With such answers, the libertarian is now in a position to challenge the threats in reality as posed by the key states.

So-called a priori history may have some credence among those unwilling or unable to take up the hard task of critical reading. If accepted, though, the student of history will have gained only a hardening of his beliefs to conform with those imparted to him by the power structure of the state, in the form of its Court Intellectuals. For, the state can only maintain its rule of violence by resort -- in the end--to the creation of myths to legitimate and sanctify its hegemony.

The task of the revisionist, then, is to reverse those myths:

“By working past the fog of State deception to penetrate to the truth, to the reality behind the false appearances, the Revisionist works to delegitimate, to desanctify, the State in the eyes of the previously deceived public. By doing so, the Revisionist, even if he is not a libertarian personally, performs a vitally important libertarian service.”