Rav Nahman of Breslov makes a distinction between learning halacha and reading ["שונה" {Shone}] halacha.

Learning means you go to the source in the Gemara and see how the law is derived. "Reading" means to read it and go on. 

And this later category he says is what makes Torah Scholars the are demons in the Lekutai Moharan [LeM] vol. I chapter 54. [Learning halacha means learning it with its sources in depth. That is in Lekutai Moharan vol I chapter 62 paragraph 6 and chapter 286]

There he says that the "כוח המדמה" power of delusion is always looking for a place to settle upon. And when that power of delusion finds someone who reads halacha, it settles there. And so it is important to never hear words of Torah from these demonic Torah scholars since their ideas in Torahh contain more evil than good. That is to say that even though their words are about Torah so they contain some good, still that good is less than 50% so the evil is the majority and cancels the good.

 Or one can become conservative by learning the Bible. Reason and Faith was the approach of the Middle Ages. To come to objective morality by Reason alone does not work. You need faith also. [Even though some moral principles might be reasonable, but can not be derived by reason. You need to start with some moral principle that is a beginning, not derived from any where. You can not get an "ought" from an "is". And you can not get a tuna fish  sandwich without tuna. You need to start somewhere. []Though Hegel would disagree, I am mainly saying what I understand by the Kant-Fries Approach.

 In Israel the minister of finance wants that there should be in schools regular studies [Mathematics English, Citizenship. Or such similar things.] And to me this makes sense. After in in the Mir in N.Y.  the high school has secular studies. Besides that I think that there is some hidden dynamics going on that is unstated. After all in the Sefardi world, you do not get the sort of division between Frum from birth and baal teshuva. It is only in the Ashkenazi world that this comes up. The Patricians against the Plebeians. This class difference is reinforced by the firm exclusion of secular studies.

This division I think is sad and in truth while I was at the Mir I did not see any of it. I was accepted as part of the regular Kollel-lite. But this division is sad. And serious. For each group looses out on something.  Especially because it is important for  everyone to learn Torah all the time. It is not a practice that is exclusive to the ruling class of the Patricians while us plebeians are supposed to support them. 

 But in fact many of us are not able to be sitting and learning Torah all day and night. So for that reason I see Musar as being of great importance since it gives over the essence of what Torah is all about--good character traits and fear of God.

 Cure of Cancer in New England Journal of Medicine: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2201445