even though from an outside perspective [the lives of modern middle-class Americans] can look frightfully regimented and devoid of any meaningful personal freedom [emphasis added].

I find this claim surprising. I could just be ethnocentric, but it genuinely seems to me that modern middle-class Americans have significantly more personal freedom (of speech, of belief, of dress, of diet, of sexuality, &c.) than members of ultraorthodox communities. Is there any chance you could try to explain the outside perspective of which you speak?