Those tests are finally behind me (average grade 69.2, failure rate 33% after a curve, or what is known here as a 'factor'). So, as advertised, let's ramble a bit about more and less meaningful social distinctions. It is told over in the name of the (--Choose One--) Maggid that once there was a rich man who had two sons-in-law, one of whom ate only milchig and the other of whom ate only fleishig. He'd alternately eat in the milchig dining room with one and in the fleishig dining room with other. When he ultimately went bankrupt (as every heimishe gvir must, unless he dies before his time), he'd continue hopping from dining room to dining room even though both sons-in-law were now eating nothing but potatoes. The story originally referred to chassidim and misnagdim but the point is a general one: various institutionalized rifts endure long after the essential divisive issues have become irrelevant. Perhaps this is now the case with the supposed divide between "Modern Orthodox" and "Haredi" (two labels I really don't like at all).

Labels are useful to the extent that they identify a class of objects or people that share a whole cluster of correlated properties. Thus mammals, metals, or Jews are interesting categories but stuff that starts with the letter 'T' isn't. It is precisely in this sense that I think the notions of MO and Haredi are becoming less and less useful.

For a relatively short period of time (say, from the 1950's onward, but not before), one could point to two distinct Orthodox groups that divided up roughly as follows:

There were happy boppers who believed in Progress, the keys to which could be found in the civilizing impact of a college education or in the liberating effect of political Zionism, and in the name of which certain halachic marginalia could be finessed.

There were angry cynics who believed in Frumkeit, the key threats to which could be found in the civilizing impact of a college education or in the liberating effect of political Zionism, and in the name of which certain halachic marginalia could be glorified.

(I love these kind of symmetric formulations, even if I have to kick a few bulges to make them work.) Anyway, once the mass-production plants of Jewish education swung into high gear, if you knew where someone studied or davened, you had a fair idea of what they ate, what they wore, what they thought about the Big Issues, etc etc. Labeling them as such was a convenient short-hand.

This is increasingly not the case for two reasons. First, maturation has driven extreme positions to the center. Both Israel and college are now viewed as having instrumental value -- no more than that and no less. Haredim come on aliyah in as high proportions as MO's and only a fringe of Religious Zionists still believe in what the Kookniks call
mam lach' tiut. Observers on both sides of the tracks are prepared to acknowledge both the necessity of higher education for functioning in society as well as the moral decadence of the increasingly nihilistic atmosphere on college campuses. (William Kolbrener's article on this is well worth reading.)

Second, there is no longer much correlation between issues. There's surely a higher percentage of anal, shva-na/shva-nach, halachah technonerds in YU than there are in Satmar. (I'm warming to my own rhetoric here; bear with me.) The Lakewooders are up on Madonna and more than a few are Americanized happy boppers. A kid with ten siblings and payos could as easily be wearing a kipah srugah in Yitzhar as a kapelush in Bnei Brak. The across-the-board stereotypes sketched above have become anachronisms. So... now that I've had the last word on this topic, let's have no more discussion of it again. Ever.

Besides, like some other bloggers, I personally don't like being pigeon-holed.