Pluralism's Incompatibility With Christianity
The 'Encyclopedia of Science and Religion' reads: "The term 'pluralism' is applied to philosophical positions emphasizing diversity and multiplicity over homogeneity and unity." [1]
When approached from a socio-political perspective, the modern pluralistic ideal has been proven impossible by both logical extrapolation and practical experience. [2] It's impossible for a community to unite around differences rather than similarities. Such a community could only be defined by negatives, and even this wouldn't work if the society was too large.
By "uniting" around diversity our society is antagonizing differences and producing conflict and hate. Diversity destroys unity, and Christians need to fight diversity and produce peaceful united communities.
Human societies have never been united by differences. Such an idea is comparable to logical fallacies like "can God create a round square?" Amos 3:3 reads: "How can two men walk together unless they agree." No society can form, much less thrive, without a positive identity and common set of goals. If two men are traveling in opposite directions how can they walk together? Answer: By abandoning their present courses and deciding upon a new direction. Likewise, a diverse society can only thrive by abandoning diversity and creating a new identity.
GOD AND RELIGIOUS PLURALISM
Is it desirable to set a new course or create a new identity? Religiously speaking, I'd argue it's impossible. If Christians abandon Christianity in order to unite themselves with Muslims then they'd become apostates condemned to eternal damnation. A Christian pluralist must inevitably sacrifice some of his beliefs if he hopes to live in unity with Muslims. Even the act of evangelism represents conquest, a conquest that can lead to religious unity (homogeneity).
Christianity can't be pluralistic because its claims are inherently intolerant. Jesus said: "No man comes to the Father but by me," and his followers have always believed that the religious "other" is destined for Hell. A failure to religiously colonize souls (evangelize) amounts to a shirking of God's divine mandate.
Paganism is ideally pluralistic because its pantheons are never exclusive. Adding another god to a pagan pantheon isn't difficult, and if it stops a civil war than almost any heathen nation will choose to do it. The Christian God, however, demands unadulterated devotion: "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve," and "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." Christians are obligated to fight religious pluralism by proclaiming monotheism.
Famed Egyptologist James Henry Breasted claimed that "Monotheism is but imperialism in religion." [3] Christianity must dominate. All non-Christian faiths will be annihilated at Christ's return.
If some cultures possess knowledge of the one true God, while others remain steeped in paganism, then civilizational inequality is inevitable. The hard truth is that Christian cultures are right while pagan cultures are wrong. Cultural pluralism is repudiated by monotheism. God's culture is superior. Western Civilization, built on Christianity, became superior to other civilizations. Its foundation on the Rock of Truth elevated it above its rivals. Cultural pluralism is impossible when one culture is clearly superior.
CONCENTRIC CIRCLES OF SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
Diversity can only functionally increase with each outward concentric circle of loosening social organization. The more cooperation required in an institution, the less diversity it's able to sustain. The closest, and least diverse, social organization is the biological family. The broadest social organization is the world church (religious affiliation). Diversity is extremely low in the biological family, but high across the global church.
The global church relies very little on its members' ability to cooperation. Two Christians living on different continents will probably never speak or interact with one another. Global diversity, then, becomes practically irrelevant in the church's day-to-day activities.
In the nuclear family, however, members interact every single day, and even small amounts of diversity within a family can negatively impact cooperation. To avoid dysfunction, God united family members with the common DNA that effects their culture, experiences, behavior, and intelligence. This reduces friction.
As the level of diversity increases, the level of possible cooperation declines. The possibility of cooperation declines as diversity increases. [4] The most obvious example of this can be seen in language barriers. An organization divided by language is inevitably dysfunctional. Members can't understand one another nor work together effectively.
It's beneficial to think of human social interaction as a giant circle with smaller circles inside each other.
The first and smallest circle, the human family, is tiny, and it fits easily within every other circle. Significant diversity can be deeply destructive inside this tiny circle of close interaction. If parents don't share cultural, ethnic, linguistic, and religious similarities then their family is likely doomed to dysfunction. Even tiny levels of diversity in a family such as differing opinions about how to raise children or prioritize money can result in devastating consequences. Exceptions exist, but they're exceptions because they're rare, and they serve to highlight the general truth.
The second smallest circle might be a peer group or local church congregation. In this circle, there's greater room for diversity because the members don't have to cooperate on an intimate level. However, homogeneity and unity are still necessary. In the case of congregations, the members must share the same basic doctrinal beliefs, worship styles, cultural norms, and language. Usually they must share ethnic and political identity. Normally, they share economic class. Liberal literature abounds bemoaning the lack of diversity in American churches. [5]
Having attended numerous congregations, I can personally vouch for this general lack of diversity. Functional congregations are homogeneous in the ways discussed above. While exceptional individuals can participate in a congregation that doesn't fit their personal profile, congregations usually only functions as a result of the homogeneity which exists despite the exceptional individuals they often contain. Diverse congregations almost never thrive across generations even if they sometimes manage to form from the sheer will of their founding members.
In a healthy society, the third circle might be a city, but contemporary American cities don't represent much. Where a person lives has become increasingly irrelevant to their identity, and two people's personal experiences of one city very widely depending on their race and socio-economic class.
I'd argue the third circle is still the nation-state polity even if there's no longer any logical connection between its citizens. Considering the nation-state, or whatever is left of it, to be the third circle, despite pluralism's effects on it, merely serves to explain America's present dysfunction.
The twenty-first century United States is a balkanized and partially Third World conglomeration of disparate peoples from every corner of the globe. The polite term for this is "multicultural," and the impolite term is "dysfunctional." The United States has always suffered from ethnic conflict, but this violence has been largely relegated to the fringe because the European American super-majority maintained a homogeneous dominant "First World" culture. In recent decades, however, this consensus culture and ethnic stock has weakened. White Americans barely constitute a majority of the population, [9] and we've lost control of the culture. The third circle of social organization is both diverse and hemorrhaging. It will not be long until the United States becomes something akin to a free-for-all semi-dystopian landscape for a significant percentage of lower and middle class people.
It's natural to have a diversity of regions, families, and religious organizations within an organic nation. Individual peer groups don't have to associate with one another regularly, and many people within a nation never meet. Nevertheless, diversity must be limited politically, religiously, linguistically, and ethnically. If a political state doesn't share a language (as modern America increasingly doesn't) the citizens will cease to be reasonably connected. Differences of ethnicity and religion produce different worldviews, intelligence/temperament averages, identities, and value systems. Politically, a nation's population must at least agree upon a legitimate form of government (even if they don't agree on how it should operate); otherwise, civil war should be expected.
The fourth and largest circle is religious affiliation. In this circle, broad disparate groups of people agree upon serving a particular god or attending humanity's spiritual needs in a particular way. In this circle, almost every form of diversity, except religious diversity, can be found; and various human sub-groups will still be regarded as "other" within the same religion.
In each larger circle of social organization more diversity can be allowed because the individuals involved in the circle will have incrementally less interaction with one another, and the need for their cooperation will be more limited.
Among the clearest examples of diversity being managed can be seen in the way people choose spouses. There are numerous individuals each person is capable of maintaining friendships with, but there are few people compatible for marriage. Typically, diversity runs in opposition to compatibility. The more similar a man and women are, the higher the odds they’ll find each other compatible. Some romantics protest this fact, but the research is definitive. [6] The more similar a husband and wife are the more successful their marriage tends to be.
CONCLUSION
Despite our society's contemporary obsession with praising diversity, there remains no convincing argument that it has much of a positive social effect. Diversity is something to be tolerated, it is not something to be encouraged.
God demands religious homogeneity within humanity. God has created ethnic homogeneity among the first three circles of the four discussed above.
Social science research has revealed that diversity destroys community trust and cooperation. The following two block quotes are from Big Ten and Ivy League researchers:
Christians should embrace more realistic views about diversity if we hope to build more loving communities. Most of all, we should discourage religious diversity and fight for a world in which all men everywhere serve the one true God.
NOTES
[1] Bielfeldt, Dennis. "Pluralism." Encyclopedia of Science and Religion. 2003. Accessed December 21, 2015. http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/pluralism.aspx#5.
[2] I use "pluralism" and "diversity" as synonyms, and I'm primarily referring to macro-diversity when I use these terms (ethnicity, politics, language, religion, culture, worldview, etc.). I'm not generally referring to interpersonal diversity or minor differences in talents and interests which occur between individuals.
[3] Breasted, James Henry. "Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt." Chapter: "Lecture IX: The Imperial Age – The world-State Makes Its Impression on Religion – Triumph of RE – Earliest Monotheism – Ikhnation (Amenhotep IV)." (Page: 315). Sacred Texts. Accessed December 22, 2015. http://www.sacred-texts.com/egy/rtae/rtae13.htm.
[4] Neal, Zachary, and Jennifer Neal. "The (In)compatibility of Diversity and Sense of Community." Michigan State University. November 1, 2013. Accessed November 1, 2015. https://www.msu.edu/~zpneal/publications/nealdiversitysoc.pdf.
[5] Smietana, Bob. "Research: Racial Diversity at Church More Dream Than Reality." Lifeway Research. January, 2014. Accessed December 22, 2015.http://www.lifewayresearch.com/2014/01/17/research-racial-diversity-at-church-more-dream-than-reality/.
EXTRACT: "Having a racially diverse church remains more dream than reality for most Protestant pastors. More than eight in ten (85 percent) say every church should strive for racial diversity, according to a survey from Nashville-based LifeWay Research. But few have diverse flocks. Most (86 percent) say their congregation is predominately one racial or ethnic group."
Smietana, Bob. "Research: Racial Diversity at Church More Dream Than Reality." Lifeway Research. January, 2014. Accessed December 22, 2015.http://www.lifewayresearch.com/2014/01/17/research-racial-diversity-at-church-more-dream-than-reality/.
EXTRACT: "Non-Hispanic whites make up 63 percent of the population. That number drops to about 49 percent for children under 5 years old, according to a recent report from the Associated Press."
[6] Lehrer, Jonah. "Opposites Don't Attract (And That’s Bad News)." Wired. January, 2012. Accessed December 22, 2015. http://www.wired.com/2012/01/opposites-dont-attract-and-thats-bad-news/.
EXTRACT: "Opposites attract. Although we love to repeat this optimistic cliché about human nature, decades of psychological research have demonstrated that the truism isn't true. Rather, people seek out people who are just like them. This is known as the similarity-attraction effect, or SAE. Although there's slight variation in the strength of the effect, the SAE has been shown to exist in nearly every culture, from Western Europe to the remote tribes of the Brazilian rainforest. It doesn't matter where we live or how we grew up or which language we speak – we still want to spend time with people who feel similar. It's simply more comfortable."
EXTRACT: "Bahns et al. found that students at the huge state school tended to spend time with people who were much more similar to them than students at the small, rural colleges. According to the scientists, the level of correlation between friends on the survey was higher on 80 percent of the questions at the University of Kansas, suggesting that the undergraduates were using the size of the campus to identify those who shared their precise set of beliefs, habits and attitudes. Instead of learning from people who were extremely different – who disagreed with their stance on abortion, or didn't like ultimate frisbee, or never attended football games – the students were obeying the similarity-attraction effect, sifting through the vast population to find the most homologous possible circle of friends. As the researchers put it, 'the larger social contexts afford better opportunity for fine-grained assortment.'"
Reeves, Richard and Joanna Venator. "Opposites Don't Attract: Assortive Mating and Social Mobility." Brookings Institute. February, 2010. Accessed December 22, 2015. http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/social-mobility-memos/posts/2014/02/10-opposites-dont-attract-assortative-mating-reeves.
EXTRACT: "A recent NBER paper finds that Americans increasingly practice 'positive assortative mating’ when picking their spouse. That is to say, 'like marries like.'"
Law, Sally. "Actually, Opposites Don't Attract, Study Finds." NBC News. March, 2013. Accessed December 22, 2015. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/29918403/ns/health-behavior/t/actually-opposites-dont-attract-study-finds/#.VnkBfY9OLIU.
EXTRACT: "Do opposites really attract? A new study finds that when it comes to personality, people seek partners with their same qualities — but claim to want someone who is different… 'Although many individuals occasionally feel attracted to 'opposites,' attractions between opposites often do not develop into serious intimate relationships and, when they do, these relationships often end prematurely.'"
[7] Putnam, Robert. "E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture." Wiley Online Library. June 1, 2007. Accessed November 19, 2015. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.14679477.2007.00176.x/abstract.
When approached from a socio-political perspective, the modern pluralistic ideal has been proven impossible by both logical extrapolation and practical experience. [2] It's impossible for a community to unite around differences rather than similarities. Such a community could only be defined by negatives, and even this wouldn't work if the society was too large.
By "uniting" around diversity our society is antagonizing differences and producing conflict and hate. Diversity destroys unity, and Christians need to fight diversity and produce peaceful united communities.
Human societies have never been united by differences. Such an idea is comparable to logical fallacies like "can God create a round square?" Amos 3:3 reads: "How can two men walk together unless they agree." No society can form, much less thrive, without a positive identity and common set of goals. If two men are traveling in opposite directions how can they walk together? Answer: By abandoning their present courses and deciding upon a new direction. Likewise, a diverse society can only thrive by abandoning diversity and creating a new identity.
GOD AND RELIGIOUS PLURALISM
Is it desirable to set a new course or create a new identity? Religiously speaking, I'd argue it's impossible. If Christians abandon Christianity in order to unite themselves with Muslims then they'd become apostates condemned to eternal damnation. A Christian pluralist must inevitably sacrifice some of his beliefs if he hopes to live in unity with Muslims. Even the act of evangelism represents conquest, a conquest that can lead to religious unity (homogeneity).
Christianity can't be pluralistic because its claims are inherently intolerant. Jesus said: "No man comes to the Father but by me," and his followers have always believed that the religious "other" is destined for Hell. A failure to religiously colonize souls (evangelize) amounts to a shirking of God's divine mandate.
Paganism is ideally pluralistic because its pantheons are never exclusive. Adding another god to a pagan pantheon isn't difficult, and if it stops a civil war than almost any heathen nation will choose to do it. The Christian God, however, demands unadulterated devotion: "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve," and "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." Christians are obligated to fight religious pluralism by proclaiming monotheism.
Famed Egyptologist James Henry Breasted claimed that "Monotheism is but imperialism in religion." [3] Christianity must dominate. All non-Christian faiths will be annihilated at Christ's return.
If some cultures possess knowledge of the one true God, while others remain steeped in paganism, then civilizational inequality is inevitable. The hard truth is that Christian cultures are right while pagan cultures are wrong. Cultural pluralism is repudiated by monotheism. God's culture is superior. Western Civilization, built on Christianity, became superior to other civilizations. Its foundation on the Rock of Truth elevated it above its rivals. Cultural pluralism is impossible when one culture is clearly superior.
CONCENTRIC CIRCLES OF SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
Diversity can only functionally increase with each outward concentric circle of loosening social organization. The more cooperation required in an institution, the less diversity it's able to sustain. The closest, and least diverse, social organization is the biological family. The broadest social organization is the world church (religious affiliation). Diversity is extremely low in the biological family, but high across the global church.
The global church relies very little on its members' ability to cooperation. Two Christians living on different continents will probably never speak or interact with one another. Global diversity, then, becomes practically irrelevant in the church's day-to-day activities.
In the nuclear family, however, members interact every single day, and even small amounts of diversity within a family can negatively impact cooperation. To avoid dysfunction, God united family members with the common DNA that effects their culture, experiences, behavior, and intelligence. This reduces friction.
As the level of diversity increases, the level of possible cooperation declines. The possibility of cooperation declines as diversity increases. [4] The most obvious example of this can be seen in language barriers. An organization divided by language is inevitably dysfunctional. Members can't understand one another nor work together effectively.
It's beneficial to think of human social interaction as a giant circle with smaller circles inside each other.
The first and smallest circle, the human family, is tiny, and it fits easily within every other circle. Significant diversity can be deeply destructive inside this tiny circle of close interaction. If parents don't share cultural, ethnic, linguistic, and religious similarities then their family is likely doomed to dysfunction. Even tiny levels of diversity in a family such as differing opinions about how to raise children or prioritize money can result in devastating consequences. Exceptions exist, but they're exceptions because they're rare, and they serve to highlight the general truth.
The second smallest circle might be a peer group or local church congregation. In this circle, there's greater room for diversity because the members don't have to cooperate on an intimate level. However, homogeneity and unity are still necessary. In the case of congregations, the members must share the same basic doctrinal beliefs, worship styles, cultural norms, and language. Usually they must share ethnic and political identity. Normally, they share economic class. Liberal literature abounds bemoaning the lack of diversity in American churches. [5]
Having attended numerous congregations, I can personally vouch for this general lack of diversity. Functional congregations are homogeneous in the ways discussed above. While exceptional individuals can participate in a congregation that doesn't fit their personal profile, congregations usually only functions as a result of the homogeneity which exists despite the exceptional individuals they often contain. Diverse congregations almost never thrive across generations even if they sometimes manage to form from the sheer will of their founding members.
In a healthy society, the third circle might be a city, but contemporary American cities don't represent much. Where a person lives has become increasingly irrelevant to their identity, and two people's personal experiences of one city very widely depending on their race and socio-economic class.
I'd argue the third circle is still the nation-state polity even if there's no longer any logical connection between its citizens. Considering the nation-state, or whatever is left of it, to be the third circle, despite pluralism's effects on it, merely serves to explain America's present dysfunction.
The twenty-first century United States is a balkanized and partially Third World conglomeration of disparate peoples from every corner of the globe. The polite term for this is "multicultural," and the impolite term is "dysfunctional." The United States has always suffered from ethnic conflict, but this violence has been largely relegated to the fringe because the European American super-majority maintained a homogeneous dominant "First World" culture. In recent decades, however, this consensus culture and ethnic stock has weakened. White Americans barely constitute a majority of the population, [9] and we've lost control of the culture. The third circle of social organization is both diverse and hemorrhaging. It will not be long until the United States becomes something akin to a free-for-all semi-dystopian landscape for a significant percentage of lower and middle class people.
It's natural to have a diversity of regions, families, and religious organizations within an organic nation. Individual peer groups don't have to associate with one another regularly, and many people within a nation never meet. Nevertheless, diversity must be limited politically, religiously, linguistically, and ethnically. If a political state doesn't share a language (as modern America increasingly doesn't) the citizens will cease to be reasonably connected. Differences of ethnicity and religion produce different worldviews, intelligence/temperament averages, identities, and value systems. Politically, a nation's population must at least agree upon a legitimate form of government (even if they don't agree on how it should operate); otherwise, civil war should be expected.
The fourth and largest circle is religious affiliation. In this circle, broad disparate groups of people agree upon serving a particular god or attending humanity's spiritual needs in a particular way. In this circle, almost every form of diversity, except religious diversity, can be found; and various human sub-groups will still be regarded as "other" within the same religion.
In each larger circle of social organization more diversity can be allowed because the individuals involved in the circle will have incrementally less interaction with one another, and the need for their cooperation will be more limited.
Among the clearest examples of diversity being managed can be seen in the way people choose spouses. There are numerous individuals each person is capable of maintaining friendships with, but there are few people compatible for marriage. Typically, diversity runs in opposition to compatibility. The more similar a man and women are, the higher the odds they’ll find each other compatible. Some romantics protest this fact, but the research is definitive. [6] The more similar a husband and wife are the more successful their marriage tends to be.
CONCLUSION
Despite our society's contemporary obsession with praising diversity, there remains no convincing argument that it has much of a positive social effect. Diversity is something to be tolerated, it is not something to be encouraged.
God demands religious homogeneity within humanity. God has created ethnic homogeneity among the first three circles of the four discussed above.
Social science research has revealed that diversity destroys community trust and cooperation. The following two block quotes are from Big Ten and Ivy League researchers:
"recent… work… has uncovered a community diversity dialectic wherein the contextual conditions that foster respect for diversity run in opposition to those that foster sense of community. More specifically, within neighborhoods, residential integration provides opportunities for intergroup contact that are necessary to promote respect of diversity but may prevent the formation of dense interpersonal networks that are necessary to promote sense of community." [7]As Christians, it should be our goal to form strong communities and families in which to exhibit love and generosity towards one another. God wants us to live in harmony with each other. By encouraging diversity our enemies are creating unnecessary strife and violence.
"inhabitants of diverse communities tend to withdraw from collective life, distrust their neighbors, regardless of the color of their skin, to withdraw even from close friends, to expect the worst from their community and its leaders, to volunteer less, to give less to charity and work on community projects less, to agitate for social reform more, but have less faith that they can actually make a difference, and to huddle unhappily in front of the television." [8]
Christians should embrace more realistic views about diversity if we hope to build more loving communities. Most of all, we should discourage religious diversity and fight for a world in which all men everywhere serve the one true God.
NOTES
[1] Bielfeldt, Dennis. "Pluralism." Encyclopedia of Science and Religion. 2003. Accessed December 21, 2015. http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/pluralism.aspx#5.
[2] I use "pluralism" and "diversity" as synonyms, and I'm primarily referring to macro-diversity when I use these terms (ethnicity, politics, language, religion, culture, worldview, etc.). I'm not generally referring to interpersonal diversity or minor differences in talents and interests which occur between individuals.
[3] Breasted, James Henry. "Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt." Chapter: "Lecture IX: The Imperial Age – The world-State Makes Its Impression on Religion – Triumph of RE – Earliest Monotheism – Ikhnation (Amenhotep IV)." (Page: 315). Sacred Texts. Accessed December 22, 2015. http://www.sacred-texts.com/egy/rtae/rtae13.htm.
[4] Neal, Zachary, and Jennifer Neal. "The (In)compatibility of Diversity and Sense of Community." Michigan State University. November 1, 2013. Accessed November 1, 2015. https://www.msu.edu/~zpneal/publications/nealdiversitysoc.pdf.
[5] Smietana, Bob. "Research: Racial Diversity at Church More Dream Than Reality." Lifeway Research. January, 2014. Accessed December 22, 2015.http://www.lifewayresearch.com/2014/01/17/research-racial-diversity-at-church-more-dream-than-reality/.
EXTRACT: "Having a racially diverse church remains more dream than reality for most Protestant pastors. More than eight in ten (85 percent) say every church should strive for racial diversity, according to a survey from Nashville-based LifeWay Research. But few have diverse flocks. Most (86 percent) say their congregation is predominately one racial or ethnic group."
Smietana, Bob. "Research: Racial Diversity at Church More Dream Than Reality." Lifeway Research. January, 2014. Accessed December 22, 2015.http://www.lifewayresearch.com/2014/01/17/research-racial-diversity-at-church-more-dream-than-reality/.
EXTRACT: "Non-Hispanic whites make up 63 percent of the population. That number drops to about 49 percent for children under 5 years old, according to a recent report from the Associated Press."
[6] Lehrer, Jonah. "Opposites Don't Attract (And That’s Bad News)." Wired. January, 2012. Accessed December 22, 2015. http://www.wired.com/2012/01/opposites-dont-attract-and-thats-bad-news/.
EXTRACT: "Opposites attract. Although we love to repeat this optimistic cliché about human nature, decades of psychological research have demonstrated that the truism isn't true. Rather, people seek out people who are just like them. This is known as the similarity-attraction effect, or SAE. Although there's slight variation in the strength of the effect, the SAE has been shown to exist in nearly every culture, from Western Europe to the remote tribes of the Brazilian rainforest. It doesn't matter where we live or how we grew up or which language we speak – we still want to spend time with people who feel similar. It's simply more comfortable."
EXTRACT: "Bahns et al. found that students at the huge state school tended to spend time with people who were much more similar to them than students at the small, rural colleges. According to the scientists, the level of correlation between friends on the survey was higher on 80 percent of the questions at the University of Kansas, suggesting that the undergraduates were using the size of the campus to identify those who shared their precise set of beliefs, habits and attitudes. Instead of learning from people who were extremely different – who disagreed with their stance on abortion, or didn't like ultimate frisbee, or never attended football games – the students were obeying the similarity-attraction effect, sifting through the vast population to find the most homologous possible circle of friends. As the researchers put it, 'the larger social contexts afford better opportunity for fine-grained assortment.'"
Reeves, Richard and Joanna Venator. "Opposites Don't Attract: Assortive Mating and Social Mobility." Brookings Institute. February, 2010. Accessed December 22, 2015. http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/social-mobility-memos/posts/2014/02/10-opposites-dont-attract-assortative-mating-reeves.
EXTRACT: "A recent NBER paper finds that Americans increasingly practice 'positive assortative mating’ when picking their spouse. That is to say, 'like marries like.'"
Law, Sally. "Actually, Opposites Don't Attract, Study Finds." NBC News. March, 2013. Accessed December 22, 2015. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/29918403/ns/health-behavior/t/actually-opposites-dont-attract-study-finds/#.VnkBfY9OLIU.
EXTRACT: "Do opposites really attract? A new study finds that when it comes to personality, people seek partners with their same qualities — but claim to want someone who is different… 'Although many individuals occasionally feel attracted to 'opposites,' attractions between opposites often do not develop into serious intimate relationships and, when they do, these relationships often end prematurely.'"
[7] Putnam, Robert. "E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture." Wiley Online Library. June 1, 2007. Accessed November 19, 2015. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.14679477.2007.00176.x/abstract.