Question

henry d. thoreau walden
\still we live meanly, like ants; though the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men; like pygmies we fight with cranes; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. our life is frittered away by detail.
an honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! i say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb - nail
in the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand - and - one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. simplify, simplify.\
thoreau, henry david. \walden, 1854.\ ed. j. lyndon shanley. princeton: princeton up (1971)
the views expressed in the excerpt had the most in common with those of which of the following groups?
elimination tool
select one answer
a members of utopian communities that tried to live a communal lifestyle
b participants in religious revivals that attracted people closer to god
c those who migrated west searching for economic opportunities.
d southerners who supported an agrarian economy.

Explanation:

Thoreau's views in Walden emphasize simplicity and a critique of the complexity and excess of mainstream civilization. Utopian communities (like Brook Farm, Oneida Community etc.) often aimed for a simpler, more communal lifestyle away from the perceived vices of mainstream society, which aligns with Thoreau's call for simplicity ("Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!"). Religious revivals (Option B) were more about spiritual - religious fervor and personal salvation rather than simplicity in lifestyle. Westward migration (Option C) was driven by economic motives (land, gold, etc.). Southern agrarian economy supporters (Option D) were more about maintaining a particular economic - social (slave - based) agricultural system, not about simplicity in the sense Thoreau meant.

Answer:

A. Members of utopian communities that tried to live a communal lifestyle