So I have officially completed my failed and highly unsatisfactory effort to follow the Republican nomination process. I have to conclude that libertarians, mainstream Republicans, and even Clinton Democrats appear pretty clueless about what ails and animates the majority of our voters right now.

Meanwhile, I’ve returned to the semi-contemplative mode of thinking about the distinctive contribution of the South to our truthful understanding of who we are and what we’re supposed to do as a people and as particular persons. Because I’m thinking about what’s good, I’m not, of course, thinking about slavery and racism and all that. And I think that’s what good can be detached from all that.

This morning I read an interview with Glenn Arbery, a legendary teacher, scholar, poet, and now college president (yes, it is possible for college administrators to minister unto wisdom and virtue). Glenn, at a late stage in life, has emerged as one of the leading Southern novelists around today.

Please follow me in falling in love with what Glen says here:

I have considerable difficulty with the idea of “rewriting biological and sexual givens.” Those givens seem to me the source of anguish, yes, but also of wonder and gratitude — emotions I have felt daily with our Down syndrome daughter, who is now 28. If we’re talking about the moral and intellectual improvement of which we’re certainly capable, sure, but the kind of “rewriting” I think you mean comes out of a narrative of self-ownership that I find unfortunate and sometimes laughable. If we could bestow a single moment of existence upon ourselves, perhaps it would be creditable, but we live and breathe and have our being out of a mystery more than biological. “Givens” imply a Giver, and it seems to me more honest and certainly more rewarding to ponder the constitution of that given-ness than to assert too much for the will and to make the shallow claims of self-invention.

There’s a lot I could say by way of commentary, but I wouldn’t do justice to words that really do speak for themselves. Well, let me add a moment of wondrous gratitude for the fact that Glen is the one great Southern writer I can actually call my friend.

Now, to all ye Straussians, libertarians, transhumanists, and postmodernists wrongly understood: I’m not writing Locke out of my American narrative. Our Lockean claims, however, really are “shallow” and “assert too much for the will.” The South at its best puts the will in its proper place.