Admittedly, this sounds somewhat tautological - i.e. doubled and yet not very illuminating. Enlightenment is when someone enlightens me (or maybe the other way around). This brings us a little bit closer to the matter at hand. Enlightenment is not just something, but something happens. Or more precisely: something doesn't just happen, but something happens with and between people.
In the current political situation in Europe, the demand for a - second - Enlightenment is often raised. One for the Islamic population, which perhaps the first one is not. Or also one for the apparently increasing number of those who seem to have forgotten much of what was considered to be settled after the European Enlightenment. And who apparently want to return to a new 'self-inflicted immaturity'.
According to the encyclopedia, immaturity is "the inability to use one's intellect without the guidance of another. What is often overlooked: The ability to use one's intellect independently does not simply fall from heaven. The opportunity for learning stands between immaturity and maturity. Enlightenment therefore needs enlighteners.
And enlightenment needs content, information, with which not only the already fully enlightened can occupy their minds.
Enlightenment needs access to information and knowledge. The fact that there has never been so much knowledge available and that it is also available in digital form does not in itself make it enlightenment. Only knowledge that is readily available in a usable form can have an impact on everyday social life; better still, it must be actively communicated to potential users. Therefore, education also needs people who can take care of this access.
It is clear that Kant's word about "self-inflicted immaturity" seems to be generously exculpated by all those who do not want to make an effort to open up access to learning and further development to others. And: having an army of underage fools so that the clever ones can live more comfortably seems to be quite tempting. However, such an attitude does not really indicate a truly enlightened attitude.
So let's stick to it, enlightenment needs enlighteners who enlighten in such a way that as many people as possible can join in! In practical terms, this means speaking and writing in such a way that as many people as possible can come along and understand.
Some fundamentalists seem to have recognized this very well and are very successfully taking care of the ideological and religious education of the 'minors'. Getting free newspapers, easy to understand, their political and democratic maturation and make their profits in a roundabout way.
As long as we leave the field of low-threshold knowledge transfer to them, the complaint about the lack of enlightenment mentioned at the beginning remains to a large extent a complaint about their own failure to contribute to the same.
