Steven Best
Steven Best | |
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Occupation(s) | Associate Professor of Humanities and Philosophy at the University of Texas at El Paso |
Known for | Co-founder of the North American Animal Liberation Press Office |
Notable work | (ed.) Terrorists or Freedom Fighters? Reflections on the Liberation of Animals (2004) |
Website | drstevebest |
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Steven Best (born December 1955) is an American philosopher, writer, speaker and activist. His concerns include
Background
After attending high school in
In 1993, he began as an Assistant Professor of Humanities and Philosophy at the University of Texas at El Paso promoted to Associate Professor in 1999, and was Chair of the Philosophy Department 2002–2005.[1]
Academic work
A writer for The Chronicle of Higher Education described Best in 2005 as "one of the leading scholarly voices on animal rights."[2]
Best is co-founder of the Institute for Critical Animal Studies (ICAS), formerly known as the Center on Animal Liberation Affairs (CALA). His academic interests are
Best co-authored with Douglas Kellner a trilogy of texts on postmodern theory and cultural studies – Postmodern Theory: Critical Interrogations (1991), The Postmodern Turn (1997), and The Postmodern Adventure: Science, Technology, and Cultural Studies at the Third Millennium (2001).[3][4]
With Peter McLaren and Anthony J. Nocella II, Best co-edited Academic Repression: Reflections from the Academic Industrial Complex (2010).[5]
Best has also written on subjects relating to popular culture, including articles on the film RoboCop and Hip hop music.[6][7]
Activism
Best is an advocate of
In bold contrast to the limitations of the animal advocacy movement (AAM) and all other reformist causes, Takis Fotopoulos advances a broad view of human dynamics and social institutions, their impact on the earth, and the resulting consequences for society itself. Combining anti-capitalist, radical democracy, and ecological concerns in the concept of "ecological democracy," Fotopoulos defines this notion as "the institutional framework which aims at the elimination of any human attempt to dominate the natural world, in other words, as the system which aims to reintegrate humans and Nature. This implies transcending the present 'instrumentalist' view of Nature, in which Nature is seen as an instrument for growth, within a process of endless concentration of power.[9]
Animal Liberation Press Office
In December 2004, Best co-founded the North American Animal Liberation Press Office, which acts as a media office for a number of animal rights groups, including the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), though he has said that he is not himself an ALF activist.[2]
Views on civil disobedience, militant direct action and violence
Best has criticized others in the animal-rights movement who embrace a "fundamentalist pacifism" and oppose any kind of militant direct action, which could include such tactics as "illegal raids, rescues, and sabotage attacks."
In his 2014 book The Politics of Total Liberation: Revolution for the 21st Century, Best asserts that militant direct action and "extensional self-defense"
In a global setting, contextualism asks this question: How can we best defend all life and the entire planet from the massive and unrelenting assault of global capitalism, centralized political rule, militarism, and the metastasizing growth of the human empire colonizing the earth and monopolizing its resources? Questions concerning the legitimacy and efficacy of physical force cannot be answered in the abstract, but only in specific contexts. Whereas partisans on both sides want to read the history of moral progress as driven exclusively by nonviolence or violence, the fact is that social change unfolds through the entire arsenal of pressure tactics, which include strikes, protests, demonstrations, boycotts, sabotage, liberation, education, legislation or even armed struggle.[13]
Best has explained a justification for civil disobedience in the essay Beyond Animal Liberation.[14]
Ban from entering the United Kingdom
In 2005, Best planned to attend a rally to celebrate the closure—as a result of protests from the animal rights movement—of Newchurch Farm, where guinea pigs were being bred for research purposes. Charles Clarke, the British Home Secretary, said he would rely on new Home Office rules preventing people from enter the UK if they "foment, justify or glorify terrorist violence in further of particular beliefs; seek to provoke others to terrorist acts; foment other serious criminal activity or seek to provoke others to serious criminal acts."[15] In a letter to Best dated August 24, 2005, Clarke cited a comment by Best quoted by The Daily Telegraph: "We are not terrorists, but we are a threat. We are a threat both economically and philosophically. Our power is not in the right to vote but the power to stop production. We will break the law and destroy property until we win." Best is also alleged to have said that the animal rights movement did not want to "reform" vivisectionists but to "wipe them off the face of the earth."[15]
The letter from the Home Secretary said: "In expressing such views, it is considered that you are fomenting and justifying terrorist violence and seeking to provoke others to terrorist acts and fomenting other serious criminal activity and seeking to provoke others to serious criminal acts."
See also
- Animal Liberation Press Office
- Critical animal studies (CAS)
- Earth Liberation Front (ELF)
- Behind the Mask
- Speciesism: The Movie
- List of animal rights advocates
References
- ^ a b Curriculum vitae Archived 2016-09-29 at the Wayback Machine, drstevebest.org, accessed February 5, 2012.
- ^ a b Smallwood, Scott. "Speaking for the Animals, or the Terrorists?" Archived 2022-08-16 at the Wayback Machine, The Chronicle of Higher Education, August 5, 2005.
- ^ "Intellectual Biography Statement Dr. Steven Best". Archived from the original on 2019-07-30. Retrieved 2014-03-11.
- ^ ”Contributors,” Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine Democracy & Nature, Vol. 6, No. 3 (November 2000). Retrieved 2 June 2014.
- ^ "Political Media Review PMR". Archived from the original on 2010-09-20. Retrieved 2010-08-28.
- ^ Best, Steve. "Robocop: The Crisis of Subjectivity". Illuminations: The Critical Theory Project. Archived from the original on July 30, 2021. Retrieved July 30, 2021.
- ^ Best, Steven; Kellner, Douglas. "Rap, Black Rage, and Racial Difference" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on July 30, 2021. Retrieved July 30, 2021.
- ^ "The International Journal for Inclusive Democracy". Archived from the original on 2021-05-17. Retrieved 2021-07-28.
- ^ Steven Best,"Rethinking Revolution: Animal Liberation, Human Liberation, and the Future of the Left" Archived 2007-09-29 at the Wayback Machine, The International Journal of Inclusive Democracy, Vol. 2, No. 3 (June 2006).
- ^ ISBN 978-0983054719.
- ^ ANIMAL RIGHTS EXTREMIST CAMILLE MARINO CALLS FOR VIOLENCE Archived 2019-05-24 at the Wayback Machine, Southern Poverty Law Centre, 1 March 2012
- ISBN 978-1137471116.
If physical force is needed to save an animal from attack, then that force is a legitimate form of what I call "extensional self defense." This principle mirrors US penal code statutes known as the "necessity defense," which can be invoked when a defendant believed that an illegal act was necessary to avoid great and imminent harm. One only needs to expand this concept slightly to cover actions that are increasingly desperate and necessary to protect animals from the total war against them.
- ISBN 978-1137471116.
- ^ Steve Best, Beyond Animal Liberation, The Anarchist Library. Archived from the original on 2017-01-08. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
- ^ a b MacLeod, Donald. "Britain uses hate law to ban animal rights campaigner" Archived 2008-05-08 at the Wayback Machine, The Guardian, August 31, 2005.
- ^ a b c Smallwood, Scott. "Britain Bans American Professor Who Speaks on Behalf of Animal Liberation Front" Archived 2017-01-08 at the Wayback Machine, The Chronicle of Higher Education, August 29, 2005.
External links
External videos | |
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Total Liberation - Revolution for the 21st Century - Steve Best (IARC 2013) on YouTube |