Trevor started the thread with
That, given the historical context wherein Buddha (and, in the West, Thales) taught, the term "enlightenment" refers to a new structure of thought that quickly dominated all other thought patterns. That is to say, pre-Buddhist thought was superstitious, mystical, and non-introspective, and was the result of large-scale illiteracy and a lack of anything we could meaningfully call "education". With 3 millenia between the emergence of early enlightened thinkers and now, and given all the changes in education, technology, and social structure, practically everyone meets the requirements of the perfect enlightenment that was so fresh to the minds of early historic thinkers.
Re "a new structure of thought" - I see enlightenment as a shift in reasoning from the point of view of things, into a more general logical form of reasoning. It is widening one's mental focus to the whole, rather than the parts - though enlightenment can only come about with a knowingness of the nature of the parts.
There are two ways to look at individuals in the modern world, and the last few thousand years for that matter, and that is that either that to them the parts distract from the whole, as Dan said, or that disillusionment about the parts, causes a desire to know the whole.
We humans are blessed, in an evolutionary sense, with the emotion of boredom, which creates fairly continuous disillusionment with the parts. One also can be enlightened by being free of this boredom, as when one is no longer egotistically associated with the parts, then the nature of the whole may become more apparent.
Eventually, amongst the masses, technology will spread a disillusionment with the parts. Maslow's self-actualisation peak will become more and more desired. This is long way off - should we survive that is. Most of the worlds population still must concern themselves with how to get to a position where the provision of food, housing and health will be obtainable for the foreseeable future. Irrational consumption will only really be diminishable when such consumption hurts those persons whom hold the reigns of power, too much. Rational consumption would mean the world populations basic needs could readily be met. At such time peoples attention will gradually move to the higher plane of self-actualisation.
In the shorter term, much depends on just how robotic business makes workers become. Global communications has and will spread even more a sameness of opinion across the globe - and that opinion is that materialism and consumption are good.
The materialistic desire is immensely powerful, because it grants the power of freedom of choice. Like any form though, and a change in material wealth is just a change in form, such "greater freedom" is still completely bound, one just shifts the goal posts, one has more freedom only in the sense of being able to roam a larger area. The same applies to enlightenment, but in learning the capability of thinking in a holistic manner, then the boundaries of such bound forms may shatter - where is the boundary of infinity?
I already feel a general sense across wealthy countries of a disillusionment with things. What is more important is the game, the competition. The disillusionment in things is mostly hidden. It is not something discussed in depth between various differentiated groups. The powerful don't talk about it - they just play the game harder. It is also immensely habitual to think that new things will give us joy - they generally do, for a time. Many people do see the shallowness in this pursuit, but they do not pursue it philosophically. Tightly organised community and national structures prevent people from feeling capable of making a real difference in relation to irrational consumption.
I do have some hope, though. The old saying "familiarity breeds contempt", in relation to this post, means that boredom resulting from the lack of lasting satisfaction with a marriage to materialism, could induce a desire for divorce from that game, and may lead more people to wisdom, if they can move spiritually past the new ager scavengers, encircling the masses. This is a reason why enlightenment requires knowledge of things - through comparing things one can assess what is real and what is not. It is also a reason why globalised ownership of media organisations is so very dangerous. While communications technology does allow for a variety of media, and independent media such as this forum, real knowledge will only come to those who learn to seek it, and global media and business generally could prevent this for most people. They already do, don't they. It is akin to being under the control of some state or community majority religion, in both the opportunity to think with freedom, to stretch the boundaries of the mind are significantly reduced for nearly everyone.
