Laura McKowen

“Ultimately, the Enlightenment that postmodernists rejected is defined by a belief in objective knowledge, universal truth, science (or evidence more broadly) as a method for obtaining objective knowledge, the power of reason, the ability to communicate straightforwardly via language, a universal human nature, and individualism.”
― Helen Pluckrose, Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity—and Why This Harms Everybody

“This is the singular, hard truth I come up against every day: I am the only one responsible for my experience.”
― Laura McKowen, We Are the Luckiest: The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life

“It’s the difference between existing and actually living.”
― Laura McKowen, We Are the Luckiest: The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life

“People who stay sick choose to keep blaming. They stand firmly in their anger and resentment and call it a revolution. They bristle against this kind of work because they view it as an affront to their sovereignty. They don’t see that humility is not an admission of weakness but a result of knowing exactly how powerful you are. It’s much easier to go down the path of self-righteousness, to be sure. Nothing is more gratifying. I fall into it regularly. But those who choose the other way? They get better. They get free. They soar, with soft dignity. They rise, without needing to announce it.”
― Laura McKowen, We Are the Luckiest: The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life