UTOPIANISM in politics gets a bad press. The case against the grand-scale, state-directed kind is well known and overwhelming. U

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问题    UTOPIANISM in politics gets a bad press. The case against the grand-scale, state-directed kind is well known and overwhelming. Utopia, the perfect society, is unattainable, for there is no such thing. Remaking society in pursuit of an illusion not only fails, it leads swiftly to mass murder and moral ruin. So recent history grimly attests.
   Although true, that is just half the story. Not all modern Utopians aim to seize the state in order to cudgel the rest of the world back to paradise. Plenty of gentler ones want no more than to withdraw from the mainstream and create their own micro-paradise with a few like-minded idealists. Small experiments in collective living swept America, for example, early in the 19th century and again late in the 20th.
   Most failed or fell short. None lasted. All were laughed at. Yet in this intelligent, sympathetic history, Chris Jennings makes a good case for remembering them well. Politics stagnates, he thinks, when people stop dreaming up alternative ways of life and putting them to small-scale test.
   Though with occasional glances forward, Mr. Jennings focuses largely on the 19th century. At least 100 experimental communes sprang up across the young American republic in the mid-1800s. Mr. Jennings writes about five exemplary communities: the devout Shakers, Robert Owen’s New Harmony, the Fourierist collective at Brook Farm, Massachusetts, the Icarians at Nauvoo, Illinois, inspired by a French proto-communist, Etienne Cabet, and the Oneida Community in New York state practising "Bible communism" and "complex marriage".
   The Shakers’ founder was a Manchester Quaker, Ann Lee, a devout mother worn out by bearing dead or dying children. In 1774 she left for the New World, determined to forswear sex and create a following to share her belief. An optimistic faith in human betterment, hard work and a reputation for honest trading helped the Shakers thrive. At their peak in the early 19th century, they had perhaps 5,000 members scattered in some 20 villages across eight states. They counselled celibacy to spare women the dangers of child-bearing, made spare, slim furniture, now treasured in museums, and practised a wild, shaking dance that was taken as a sign of benign possession by the Holy Spirit.
Of the following points, which is NOT true about the Shakers?

选项 A、They believe in human progress.
B、They advocate to be single.
C、They symbolize the Holy Spirit.
D、They follow a special dance.

答案C

解析 细节题。根据题干关键词定位到文章第五段,该段详细介绍了震教徒派的情况。A项中human progress是对第五段第三句中human betterment的同义替换,即“震教徒相信人类的进步”,故正确。B项意为“震教徒提倡单身”,由该段第五句中关键词celibacy(独身)可知该项正确。D项意为“震教徒跳一种特别的舞”,其是对第五段最后一句关键词shaking dance的同义替换,故正确。C项意为“震教徒象征圣灵”,Holy Spirit一词出现在文章最后,结合该词前文可知“狂野而颤抖的舞蹈被看作是圣灵良性附身的征兆”,而非“震教徒象征圣灵”,因此该项错误,故本题选C。
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