By The Waters of Babylon Open Response

In By The Waters of Babylon by Stephen Vincent Benét,  John's tribe, the hill people, reverted to a more primitive way of life because everything was destroyed in the city due to a war. For instance, when the fallen balls hit the city and leave nothing left, the people form tribes and live together. People join together in tribes so that it is easier to survive.  Also, after the war almost everyone was killed, so there wasn't anyone to tell people how to live more advance again. If people weren't killed in the war then they would know how to build up the city again and wouldn't live in tribes. John and the hill people were forced to live a simpler way of life which was harder for everyone but most people didn't complain because they didn't remember how their advanced living style was. Due to a horrible disaster, John and his tribe were forced to live primitively.