Is deception just as bad as telling an outright lie?

Deception according to Google: A thing that deceives; the act of deceiving someone

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Deceive according to Google: Deliberately cause someone to believe that something is not true, especially for personal gain

Lying is an intrinsic part of us human beings. It’s quite sad to say that absolutely no human being has never told a lie in their life. But that’s the truth. Lying is an essential part of our lives and it will probably always be. But when does lying become a problem?

In my opinion, it is always a problem. A society where nobody needs to tell a lie would be a nearly perfect society. A society where everyone would have to live up to the truth and deal with it. A society where everyone can trust everyone and cooperation is actually possible. But this is not the case, we are living in a lying world. However, the thing that makes this lying world so bad is not really the fact that we’re telling lies. It is the fact that over time people have learned how to lie properly in order to get the masses to believe them.

Outright lies are easy to catch out. An educated audience will always be able to catch one of these. The thing that can often make them effective is when the truth about something is not actually known by the population. But eventually the truth always comes out, and outright lies will eventually be righted. In fact, I believe that the thing that really keeps them from dominating is the fact that it’s possible to provide counter-evidence. If the people can be shown the truth, then a lie will lose credibility.

Deception however, is a different story. Deception is sneaky. When done right, there’s no way to perceive it. Deception is much more carefully orchestrated so that it isn’t caught out. Facts can be true, but the message that will be given may not be a truthful one. It is the fact that deception is so powerful that makes it much worse than just telling outright lies. Deceiving someone is much more likely to succeed because the facts are so well manipulated to be credible. But the undeniable fact is that it is still lying. And because of that, we cannot have a society where trust is consistent. Use of deception is something that has been deeply ingrained into our culture, and it will be difficult to get rid of it, given that it can be so effective to further personal agendas.

Because of all this, I’m going to side up with the other corner in the classroom. I strongly disagree, not because deception is better than lying, but because it is much worse.