Forgetfulness

'''Campbell, John W. (writing as Don A. Stuart). "Forgetfulness."' Astounding'' June 1937. Coll. The Best of John W. Campbell. New York: Ballantine, 1976. Rpt. Cities of Wonder, q.v. under Anthologies. See Contento Index for other rpts.

To high-tech explorers, the people of Rhth look like primitives: the decadent, village-dwelling descendents of great city builders and space-farers, unable to explain the technology that remains on their planet. Actually, the apparent primitives are incapable of explaining the technology around them in precisely the same way as most modern people would be unable to explain the technology for making a flint knife. Our descendants "never forgot the dream that built the city. But it was a dream of childhood . . ." (Cities of Wonder 251). Cf. A. C. Clarke's Childhood's End (1953) and 2001 (q.v.).