It's not about a special group of people. It's about a cluster of ideas whose time had come. Some attack 'the enlightenment' by attacking its luminaries. Attack

It's not about a special group of people. It's about a cluster of ideas whose time had come. Some attack 'the enlightenment' by attacking its luminaries. Attacking people is facile. People are hypocritical and contradictory. Critiquing the people leads nowhere. Critique the ideas instead. The main idea is reason (usually in contrast to superstition or traditions not motivated by truth). Some have attacked harmful applications of reason. Again, facile. People want to do bad things. Critique the applications and the motives for them before critiquing reason. Why intelligent people misread things isn't a tough question. 1) They have an ideological agenda. 2) They are intelligent-clever, not intelligent-wise. Intelligent-clever people can generate an infinite stream of intelligent-sounding doubt. It's mostly noise and a waste of time to engage with.