ABSTRACT
The animal rights case recently before the New York Court of Appeals of Happy the elephant at the Bronx Zoo was not just about Happy. It was not even just about all elephants. According to U.S. historian Jill Lapore it was about “the place of the natural world in laws and constitutions written for humankind.” The case was also about humankind’s relationship to the natural world. In School Was Our Life the author told how the elementary school in New York City’s Greenwich Village she attended as a child brought her and her schoolmates out of their “narrow cell of personal needs and interests” and expanded their definition of “we” to include all races and religions. The question is: can we do what in the mid-20th century the author’s school never tried to do: in the name of ENVIRONMENTALITY expand the definition of “we” so as to associate our own happiness with the good of creatures large and small both now and in the future?
