#class issues

You are better off.

Yes, and I’ve talked about this many times before too. Sirius and James weren’t just from a higher social class, they were at the very top of the privilege pyramid within Hogwarts: both wealthy, from prominent families, both pure-bloods. There’s an entire social web at play that meant not only did they feel entitled to bully a boy below them both economically and socially, but they also knew — whether consciously or not — that their actions would have no consequences.

And I’m not just referring to the fact that, if they were at risk of being expelled, their families could step in and exert pressure. I’m talking about the economic security they had. If they had been expelled, it wouldn’t have mattered: they had money, they came from affluent backgrounds, they weren’t going to end up on the streets, they weren’t going to lose everything. If Severus had been expelled, he would’ve had to go back to a slum in a deprived area, with an abusive father, in an environment where he couldn’t even afford proper clothes. Going home wasn’t an option for him, going home meant losing any chance, no matter how small, of doing something with his life.

Sirius and James didn’t have to worry about that. They had options. So of course, it was much easier to go after the boy who not only already came from a disadvantaged situation — and was therefore a more vulnerable target — but also couldn’t defend himself with full force because doing so could get him expelled, and that was a risk he simply couldn’t afford. That played a major role in the whole dynamic. Sirius and James were a pair of privileged, aristocratic brats, and their true colours showed when they found the perfect victim, someone they felt entitled to bully for his ideas or his friendships. But regardless of Severus’s views, the truth is that this was a situation involving two boys with power targeting a boy with no support. That’s not just abusive, it’s profoundly classist.

If James and Sirius had any real courage or genuine political ideals, they would’ve gone after Mulciber, Avery, or Rosier, but those three weren’t easy targets, and messing with them wouldn’t have come cheap. So, well… better to go for the poor kid, right?

Oh, law ethics. My fave, i used to have a lot of great debates in the uno regarding this kind of topics.

Well, speaking from the perspective of someone in criminal law, but also from a political perspective, I think there is a huge difference between recognizing that someone caused harm and deciding that they therefore stop being a person worthy of understanding. Because if we start believing that empathy should only be extended to people who have never done anything wrong, then empathy stops being empathy and becomes a moral reward handed out only to those we consider deserving.

And there is something else that always bothers me about these conversations: the word “criminal” gets treated as if it were some natural category, almost like a type of person that simply exists in the world. But nobody is born a criminal. Criminal law does not punish an essence; it punishes specific acts and behaviors. The moment we turn “criminal” into an identity rather than a legal category, we stop talking about actions and start talking about entire human beings as if they were fundamentally different from everyone else.

And that process matters because the construction of the “criminal” has historically involved a process of othering and depersonalization. The criminal becomes not just someone who did something harmful, but “one of them”: irrational, dangerous, morally defective, outside the social body. Once someone is pushed into that category, it becomes much easier to strip them of complexity, history, and humanity. And once people stop being seen as fully human, violence against them becomes easier to justify.

Because violence is rarely justified by saying “we want to hurt people.” It is usually justified by saying “these people are different,” “these people are dangerous,” “these people deserve it.” Dehumanization has always functioned this way. You create distance first, and punishment becomes easier afterward.

And from a political perspective, I do not think this happens by accident. We know that common crimes are disproportionately linked to conditions such as poverty, social exclusion, lack of opportunities, unstable environments, abandonment, unequal access to healthcare, education, housing, and broader forms of structural violence. That does not mean poverty mechanically creates crime or that people have no agency. Responsibility exists. Harm exists. Victims exist. But if we consistently see who is most exposed to policing, incarceration, and criminalization, patterns emerge. Entire social groups become associated with danger and deviance. The image of “the criminal” is often inseparable from class. So when society creates a monstrous image of criminality, it frequently ends up creating a monstrous image of the poor, the excluded, and the socially disposable.

The point is not to say, “poor people are not responsible for their actions.” The point is that understanding why someone arrives somewhere is not the same thing as excusing it. Refusing to look at social conditions and structural realities does not make us more rational; it just allows us to pretend that people emerge in a vacuum.

And honestly, I think the “people care more about dogs than criminals” thing is only a symptom of something much deeper. The issue is not that people love animals. Caring about animals is not the problem. The problem is that many people increasingly seem incapable of extending empathy to human beings once they are perceived as morally contaminated.

A dog is considered innocent by default. It asks for nothing from us politically or morally. But empathy that only exists for innocence, purity, and harmlessness is an extremely fragile form of empathy. Because human beings are not pure. Human beings are contradictory, damaged, complicated, shaped by circumstances, and capable of harm.

What worries me is not that people feel immediate compassion toward animals. What worries me is a society that increasingly sees humanity itself as conditional. Because once empathy becomes dependent on perceived moral worth, the category of who counts as deserving becomes narrower and narrower.

Today it is “the criminal.” Tomorrow it can be anyone society decides exists outside the boundaries of acceptable humanity.