**Background and Education**:
– Steven Best attended high school in Chicago.
– He completed degrees in film, theater, philosophy, and a Ph.D.
– Worked as a truck driver and in factories.
– Served as a professor at the University of Texas at El Paso and was Chair of the Philosophy Department from 2002 to 2005.
**Academic Contributions**:
– Known for work on animal rights and environmental philosophy.
– Co-founded the Institute for Critical Animal Studies.
– Edited books on animal liberation, revolutionary environmentalism, and postmodern theory.
– Co-authored a trilogy on postmodern theory and cultural studies.
– Co-edited a book on academic repression.
**Activism and Advocacy**:
– Advocates for Inclusive Democracy.
– Emphasizes ecological democracy and anti-capitalist views.
– Criticizes limitations of the animal advocacy movement.
– Promotes the reintegration of humans and nature.
– Sits on the advisory board of the International Journal of Inclusive Democracy.
**Animal Liberation Press Office**:
– Co-founded the North American Animal Liberation Press Office.
– Serves as a media outlet for animal rights groups.
– Aims to raise awareness about animal rights issues.
– Supports various animal rights activities.
– Clarified that Best is not an Animal Liberation Front activist.
**Views on Tactics and Civil Disobedience**:
– Criticizes fundamentalist pacifism in the animal rights movement.
– Advocates for militant direct action and extensional self-defense.
– Believes a variety of tactics, including armed struggle, can be effective.
– Emphasizes a contextualist approach to using different tactics.
– Argues that the current ecocrisis renders pacifism obsolete.
Steven Best (born December 1955) is an American philosopher, writer, speaker and activist. His concerns include animal rights, species extinction, human overpopulation, ecological crisis, biotechnology, liberation politics, terrorism, mass media and culture, globalization, and capitalist domination. He is Associate Professor of Humanities and Philosophy at the University of Texas at El Paso. He has published 13 books and over 200 articles and reviews.
Steven Best | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | December 1955 (age 68) United States |
| Alma mater | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign University of Chicago University of Texas at Austin |
| 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 |