2007 - Third Grade Third Place

Rochelle van der Merwe, Minnesota.

Compassion or Violence: Which has a greater impact on society?

Compassion and violence
Forming each other
One leads to the other
When you’re fighting
For what you think
Seems to be right

Compassion and violence both have a lot of impact on society, but I think that violence has a greater impact on society.
Violence to me means fighting and war. Compassion to me means that there is something you think is wrong, that you fight against, but not in a violent way. Although most people think violence is fighting, violence also means to me that, if something bad happens, you fight for what you think is right, which sort of means that violence happens because of compassion. Fighting for what you think is right can be because of compassion.
A lot of time violence happens before compassion can happen. In war, violence can lead to compassion. In war you are also fighting for what you think is right, but when bad things happen in war you can try to put things right, so compassion sort of comes with violence, but violence causes compassion. So I think that violence has a greater impact on society because violence often leads to compassion, and violence is what forms compassion.

 

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