2018 – 4th Grade National 3rd Place Winner

Bennet Legg, Minnesota.

Truth or Deceit: Which has a Greater Impact on Society?

60% of people can’t go ten minutes without lying. This is one reason why I think deceit is more powerful than truth. My other reasons are lying can benefit the person that told the lie. Also, lies can be used to hide secrets to protect yourself or somebody else. These are sometimes known as white lies. Deceit causes a lot of commotion. I will go into more of these in a minute, but first, let me set something straight. I do not agree with lying unless you are protecting yourself or others. Those are my thoughts on lying.

I think that deceit is more powerful than the truth because lying can benefit the person that told the lie. People use this tactic very often. In fact, I think that out of the 60% that can’t go ten minutes without telling a lie, probably around 80% of those people tell lies to benefit themselves. This tactic can be used to land a job, or a lot of things that you need to in order to be successful. Be warned, this is a tactic that could be easily caught. Here’s an example. You are trying out for a job as a chef. You say that you know the smells of every spice and you know what spice would be the best on what food. When you arrive at the job interview, they test you on your spice knowledge. They blindfold you and put an abundance of cinnamon in front of you. You lied when you say you are a spice expert, so you guess that it’s pepper. You don’t get the job. So a lie is powerful, powerful enough that it can deny you a spot at your dream job.

Another reason that I think deceit is more powerful than the truth is because deceit can be used to hide important secrets or protect yourself or others. These are known as white lies. These can be used to keep friends. For example: you and your friend are playing basketball together. He says something that he immediately regrets. It is a secret. You go back to school. People can tell you know something they don’t. Your classmates question you. Somebody guesses the secret. You convince them it’s not true, even though it is. If you would have told them it’s true, you might have lost the friend that told you the secret. This is one lie that I think is somewhat reasonable.

Another reason that I think deceit is more powerful than the truth is because lies cause commotion. Imagine you tell everybody something. Two weeks later, when everybody has started to take action to deal with that thing you told them, you tell them it was nothing but a lie. People would be very mad at you, and there might be some yelling. Honestly, I don’t know why anybody would tell a lie like that, but it happens. That proves that deceit is very powerful because just a few words can trigger an enormous reaction.

Deceit is more powerful than the truth. However, it is not more powerful from a positive standpoint. I understand how some people think the truth is more powerful. But, I do not agree with that.

 

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