Unfortunately, if this is serious, it just makes me lose respect for him. The Enlightenment was the greatest period of human history ever with regards to philosophical and intellectual progress since ancient Greece.
I think it was serious. Norm was very well-read and his favourite literature was deeply religious and suspicious of modernity (Twain, Tolstoy, Proust).
Yes I know since I look askance at modernity too. But he was seldom serious (in a literal sense) about anything except sports. The seriousness was in the inferences, usually. This tweet (since deleted) if serious, was at least out of character.