Dipping into the past with Jordan B. Peterson, Sid Arthur and Alexander Soldier Nixon

I've been listening to Jordan B. Peterson's book. This U of T psychologist has been marked both by his growing up in northern Alberta, and by the books, events and zeitgeist of his era. As well as providing support for Peterson's claims, his chosen quotations from TS Eliot, Friedrich Nietzsche, and the King James Bible evoked memories of linguistic misunderstandings.

As a kid I thought the three kings of the carol were from a place called Orientar. Seventeen and new to UBC, I misheard crucial words in a Religious Studies class. A British student's mention of someone who sounded like Sid Arthur in a presentation on Buddhism confused me; I pictured Sid as a Yorkshire miner.

Later, in the process of completing my teacher training, I took a course in Eugene, Oregon. As professor Marg Czapo drove, she and my more politically tuned-in fellow students discussed the amazing new book by someone I heard as Alexander Soldier Nixon. Ensconced in my own world as I looked out the window from the back seat, I thought it odd that the word Soldier should be part of his name. Later, I saw the book on the car's back shelf and clued in, chagrined.

I never did read Solzhenitsin's most famous work, but was reminded of its great significance by Jordan B. Peterson, who cites it repeatedly in his comments about how its author courageously exposed the violent excesses of Russian communism.