AAQ – “I am sure there are places that try to keep with the “Joneses” in all these things. I am not talking about that at all. I am not talking about that. Just about basics of reading/writing/math/science/professions. Rambam learned greek and “modern” Arab science without getting involved in their toevot.”
I have no doubt whatsoever that you (and the YU leadership) have no intention of having anything to do with ‘toevah’ stuff. The issue is that (for example) a professor of biology (not even a Supreme Court judge…) merely expressing the viewpoint that there are only two genders is enough to get ‘cancelled’ in academia, media, etc. Even ‘pareve’ medical information websites (again, for example, this is becoming more pervasive everywhere) use language that would make Orwell blush, ostensibly to avoid offending the 0.05% of the population who is confused about their gender identity. (At least that was the number before it became a ‘social contagion’.) This isn’t a joke. There are Orthodox Jewish professionals and academics in various fields who are afraid to say certain things, for fear of being labeled ‘transphobic’, let alone ‘homophobic’. These are people who are very well versed in secular knowledge, and probably consider themselves to be ‘modern’, but the secular world they worked so hard to be accepted in no longer sees them as modern (or at least wouldn’t if they would say what they really think and believe…) Kiruv literature and websites, and even anything that could be seen in the outside public domain, have to be more and more careful not to ‘trigger’ anyone. What happens when the goyish velt deteriorates to the point where it is no longer possible to play the game of ‘modernity’? We will have to stand up and say “Yes, we believe in God Almighty the Creator who created only two genders, and He even has what to say about how they are to behave…”
None of this is inherently a סתירה to secular ‘knowledge’ per se, but it is a סתירה to secular modernity as a value. If we are honest with ourselves, how much of Modern Orthodoxy is simply aping goyish values and seeking acceptance from them, without technically violating the Halacha (hopefully)? If the Goyim will look at ‘Modern Orthodox’ as right-wing extremists, similar to the ‘Ultra-Orthodox’, that kind of takes all the fun out of it… The Rambam did not define himself in terms of his secular knowledge, nor did he see it as a value in itself. That is not the position of YU (for example).
BTW, Rav Dr. Avraham J. Twersky z”I himself notes in his memoirs that in his day (pre-68…) college campuses were far less toxic than they are now (in terms of גילוי עריות), and he acknowledged that his example is not automatically transferable to today’s מצב. He also did not define himself as Modern, and he didn’t raise his own children that way, despite his knowledge and professional accomplishments.
The bottom line is, even if you want to be Modern and value modernity, (and I’m not interested in debating the merits of that whole approach) that isn’t enough to convince the goyish velt anymore, unless you keep a VERY low profile about the ‘Orthodox’ part.