Cool-headed as she is, Scout Finch cannot escape every trap life sets for any child growing up with a four years older brother. By the time Jem hits sixth grade, he actually gets interested in what school has to offer. Unfortunately for Scout, whatever he learns he blows out of proportion when relaying it to her.
Did she know the Egyptians walked with one arm to the front, the other to the back? Or that they invented toilet paper? That they were smarter than Americans in South Alabama ever could be? But whenever Jem’s phantasms spin around Scout’s head a little too fast, she can recall a piece of advice from her father Atticus, a line that deserves recognition well beyond the pages of To Kill a Mockingbird: “Delete the adjectives, and you’ll have the facts.”
As imaginative as Jem—and most other people, for that matter–might be, he is also lazy. It’s much easier to make a real history lesson seem larger than it was than to invent one from scratch. Therefore, though it might not get Scout the whole truth, removing all judgments is a good start. And guess what? The approach to discernment that worked well for rural Alabamians 90 years ago has lost none of its shine today. If anything, clickbait headlines, impulsive tweets, and unchecked modern-day gossip have probably made it all the more warranted.
Whether it’s your older brother, a news outlet, or a not-so-rigorous friend: Delete the adjectives, get the facts—and then slowly accumulate the truth from there.