The Enlightenment was run by the hypocrisy of the European politicians. They ran along with the claim that religion was the cause of intolerance, yet they still denied the colonial Mulattos the right to vote, setting off wars of Independence in the Caribbean and the Americas. France denied and belittled the Blacks and Mulattos after the revolution had set up an atheist government. Anyways, the real part about the Enlightenment that mattered was the fact that it inspired wars of Independence, including our own in the United States, and also inspired a great deal of the idea that one should hold politicians and policies accountable, as we do here on Freerepublic regularly.
The author has no idea what he is writing about. The so-called “Enlightenment” was as retrograde as the “Rennaisance”, which among other lovely things, reintroduced slavery into European culture. Why, just consider the wonderful things the Enlightenment did for France and the Continent: ideological murder on an industrial scale, larger scale war than had ever been known, the Red Terror, the complete destruction of the French economy and severe dmage to other Continental economies...ah, yes, the Enlightenment. It must have been a good thing because “intellectuals” in universities have been telling us that it was for a very long time.
The Reformation “made us rich”, if such a thing matters. Weber knew it, but who even knows his name today?
The Enlightenment was no more run by anyone than the tea party is. It was, as the article claims, a flowering of ideas that greatly improved the condition of those fortunate to have been exposed to them. That it didn't end war is no grounds to denigrate it. What an odd comment.