Module 16

The Technical City as Symbol

Tillich on technology, disenchantment and the life of its own that things take on

Working time

180 - 240 minutes

Material

PDF

Overview

In 1928 Tillich gave a lecture in Dresden on the technical city. He sees in it a victory over the uncanny — and recognises at the same time that this very victory brings forth a new threat: the more powerful technical structures become, the more they take on a life of their own.

What this module covers

You do not need to read this beforehand — feel free to simply begin. For planning a session, this is what the module aims at.

You are able to describe Tillich's idea of disenchantment and to explain what, on his account, technology frees people from.
You are able to trace the turn in the argument: why the same technology that banishes the uncanny brings forth a new uncanniness.
You are able to apply Tillich's notion of technical structures taking on a life of their own to a present-day technology, and to justify your application.
You are able to assess, with reasons, what still holds in an analysis from 1928 and where it reaches its limits.

Learning section

What this is about

Dresden, 1928. Tillich speaks about the city he lives in — and about the technology that produced it. His starting point is not cultural pessimism. He first sees in the technical city a victory: over the uncanny, the alien, the threatening character of existence. Every installation takes a burden off human beings; each one is, as he writes, a “symbol of the disenchantment of the world”.

Then the argument turns. Precisely through this, Tillich says, the technical city becomes a symbol for the questionableness of the age. For with it a new threat arises, one that can no longer be banished by knowledge and technology — it is rather called forth by them.

The sentence at issue stands in the middle of the text: the more powerful and complicated technical structures are, the more they acquire a life of their own, independent of human beings. The harder it is to master them. The more threatening they become for whoever knows them best.

This was written in 1928, without computers, without networks, without a climate debate. Whether that makes it outdated or precisely for that reason remarkable is one of the questions of this module.

Select text to keep a passage.

Materials

PDF · M1Paul Tillich, Logos und Mythos der Technik / Die technische Stadt als Symbol, in: Die religiöse Substanz der Kultur (Gesammelte Werke IX), Stuttgart — in German

Origin

Created by

Simon Luthe

Version

Version 2026.

Rights

paultillich.de — module by Simon Luthe, CC BY-SA 4.0

Image credit

Historical photograph from the research project's holdings. Archive of paultillich.de, individual provenance not documented. Rights being clarified — the author must be established before any reuse.

Tasks · 0 of 6 done

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Prompts for thinking along — no right answer, no assessment. Ticking a box hides the task.

Task 1
Before reading the text, note down which technology strikes you as uncanny today — and which has taken a burden off you. One example of each will do.
Task 2
Read the section on the technical city in the essay (M1). Work out what Tillich means by “Entdämonisierung” — disenchantment, literally the driving out of demons.
1. What does technology free people from, on Tillich's account?
2. Why does he choose the word “demon” rather than “danger” or “hardship”?
Task 3
Tillich writes: “The more powerful and complicated technical structures are, the more they acquire a life of their own, independent of human beings; the harder it is to master them.” Trace how he moves from liberation to a new threat.
1. At what point does the argument turn?
2. Is this a contradiction in the matter itself, or a dialectic — a movement that holds both at once?
Task 4
Apply this to a technology of your own present — algorithmic decision systems, transport infrastructure, energy grids. Describe, using one example, what the life of its own consists in, and who still sees through it.
Task 5
Tillich is speaking in 1928, before digital computing and before the ecological crisis. Examine which of his observations hold unchanged and which would have to be rewritten. Name one of each and give reasons.
Task 6
Formulate an objection to Tillich: does talk of technology taking on a life of its own not amount to shifting responsibility — away from those who build and deploy it, onto the technology itself? Take a considered position.