Kilobear, unfortunately, the pinnacle of generations of Chareidi thought seems to have reached its culmination this summer with the burning of garbage cans and traffic lights in Meah Shearim, and rallies against the most advanced medical facility in Israel. Very nice philosophy, indeed. Quite impressive.
If you don’t see the complete emptiness of this derech of sinas chinam against fellow Jews who worked so hard to establish and maintain a beautiful society in Israel which is flowering in every sense of the word, then you are deliberately turning a blind eye to reality.
If you think that the emesdig Torah derech is to have kids not learn any secular studies past 7th grade, and then to have the Rabbonim who support this system which is wrecking shalom bayis and self-esteem due to the crippling poverty it has left in its wake, attempt to solve the problem not by changing the system, but by writing letters so that the victims can go collecting overseas, then we are on different planets. They ignore the very Shulchan Oruch and Mishnah Berurah which they claim to uphold which states that one can arrange to hire a teacher to teach a trade EVEN ON SHABBOS since the alternative is thievery, if there is no parnasa. How can they sleep at night if this ban on secular studies causes even one family to go hungry?
Furthermore, Rav Hutner said that my students are illiterate in 3 languages: English, Hebrew and Yiddish. Because Chareidi yeshivas make a joke out of secular studies, the students come across to the outside world as primitive and incompetent, which is not conducive to kiddush hashem or kiruv. I doubt Yosef Hatzaddik who ran Mitzrayim sounded like a bumbling, ignorant, fool. Chazal say one needs to know 70 languages to be on the Sanhedrin. The Vilna Gaon said without the 7 chochmos, one can’t properly understand Torah (one of those is music). The Abarbanel was the finance minister in 3 different regimes. I am sure he came across as supremely sophisticated. R. Zundel Salant refused to be supported by Torah, and instead ran a small store, and when he came to Israel, opened a vinegar factory.
Finally, Rav Zevin thunders that Yeshiva boys should go to the army, since Haacheichem yeilchu lamilchama vatem teshvu po? But even if they don’t serve, this system of teaching hatred of their own country and secular brethren is leading to a huge mass of people with no skills other than garbage can burning who constantly foment strife and dissent in klal yisroel. Even within their own groups they are constantly fighting and splitting since they have no real portion in yishuv haolam, and the boredom and emptiness leads to chaos (shiamum in mishnaic terms).
You yourself went to an Ivy League school. Don’t straddle the fence and play both sides of the game at once. Having picked up the tools to write decent sentences and paragraphs, and having been exposed to a broad knowledge base (I don’t know what your major was) you now become a spokesman for the other side and claim that one can function well without a secular education. Sorry, that is dishonest. You are partially a product of the secular education you received. You would not be able to articulate your anti-secular views without this education, so that is a self-contradiction and rather unethical.
As I have written, the main problem with the modern is their possible indulging in improper entertainment. However, they will not listen to any chareidi who tells them otherwise, since they will respond: But you also want me to hate the state of Israel and to give my child a 7th grade education maximum, so you are from some other planet.
Sooner or later the Chareidi world will wake up to the fact that there are very few job ads geared towards 7th graders. They will also hopefully see what their horrendous garbage can burning behavior looks like to the outside world, and cut out the anti-zionism nonsense once and for all. At that point, maybe we will have one standard for Orthodoxy and clear rulings on what is proper and improper entertainment that can be accepted and respected by all Jews. The modern and chareidi camps will merge in achdus using the best of the strengths of each.