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

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

admin2019-11-20  77
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.
According to Paragraph 1, UTOPIANISM is______.
选项 A、popular in political field
B、easy to be achieved
C、a good social model
D、a fantasy
答案D
解析 细节题。根据题干关键词定位到文章第一段。A项意为乌托邦主义“在政治领域受欢迎”，其与第一句“乌托邦主义在政治上不是个好词”相悖，故错误。B项意为乌托邦主义“容易实现”，根据第三句关键词unattainable可知，乌托邦主义是“难以达到的”，故B项错误。C项意为乌托邦主义是“好的社会模式”，根据第三句关键词the perfect society可知，乌托邦是“完美的社会”，然而却是空想出来的，其更谈不上是“好的社会模式”，故C项错误。D项中的fantasy意为“幻想”，其是对第一段第四句关键词illusion的同义替换。故本题选D。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/VZe4777K
0

考研英语二

相关试题推荐
随机试题
最新回复(0)