Two Kinds of Process Thinkers
Bohemians and System-Builders
“There are two kinds of process thinkers: Bohemians and System-Builders. The Bohemians are a little like Nietzsche—iconoclasts and visionaries who unsettle stale certainties and summon new forms of life through art, laughter, defiance, and intensity. The System-Builders are more like Whitehead himself—patient architects of possibility who weave relational wisdom into structures, intellectual and practical, that foster understanding and sustain community. One lives on the edge of becoming, the other in the heart of coherence. But both, in their own way, respond to the same cosmic invitation: to help the world become more beautiful, more just, more alive.”
— Dr. Liora Esteban, imaginary process philosopher and cultural theorist
One of the strengths of Whitehead's philosophy is that he sees something good, something beautiful, something great, in both those who build productive forms of social order and those who tear them down. He puts it this way in Process and Reality:
"There is a greatness in the lives of those who build up religious systems, a greatness in action, in idea and in self-subordination, embodied in instance after instance through centuries of growth. There is a greatness in the rebels who destroy such systems: they are the Titans who storm heaven, armed with passionate sincerity."
Process Bohemians
These two forms of greatness are not necessarily compatible. Builders shape civilizations; rebels break their spell. But both, in Whitehead’s view, participate in the creative advance of the universe. I want to put in a word for the Bohemians.
As you learn from the BBC podcast on this page. the Bohemian movement, beginning in 19th-century France and spreading through England and beyond, is an example of the rebel spirit. It challenged the moral, aesthetic, and social norms of bourgeois society. Artists, writers, musicians, and mystics gathered in cafés, attics, and alleyways, seeking truth in spontaneity, beauty in disorder, and freedom in nonconformity. They stormed heaven not with swords but with paintbrushes, poems, and jazz riffs. Like the Titans in Whitehead’s vision, they were armed with passionate sincerity.
This particular form of greatness—Bohemian greatness—has been in process from the very beginning, evolving with each generation’s discontent and creative fire. It first emerged in the garrets and cafés of Paris’ Latin Quarter, where artists and intellectuals turned away from convention and embraced a life of aesthetic risk, poverty, and philosophical defiance. From there, it spread to the salons of London, the jazz clubs of New York, the communes of San Francisco, and the underground scenes of Berlin and Tokyo. At each stage, Bohemian greatness took new forms—romantic, anarchic, psychedelic, postmodern—but its core impulse remained the same: to live against the grain, to uncover deeper truths through art, and to resist the deadening weight of social conformity.
It is not the greatness of institution-builders or systematic philosophers, but the greatness of those who unsettle what has become too settled—who reawaken the spirit through style, sound, satire, sensuality, and silence. This greatness is not necessarily moral greatness, nor is it always consistent or constructive. As the discussion in the BBC podcast included on this page make clear, Bohemian greatness can be erratic, self-destructive, or indulgent. And yet, in Whiteheadian terms, it is a greatness of “intensity,” a pursuit of vivid experience over mere order. These rebels are allies of novelty, prophets of becoming, midwives to the new.
What is equally apparent, and also made clear in the BBC podcast, is that the spirit of Bohemianism is itself in process. Its historical expressions, like those of the Romantic movement of which it is a part, are varied, evolving, and internally diverse. There is no single Bohemian creed or fixed aesthetic, but rather a shifting constellation of attitudes—irony and earnestness, rebellion and reverie, solitude and solidarity. In some eras, Bohemianism manifests as political radicalism; in others, as a retreat into art-for-art’s-sake. At times it flirts with nihilism, at others with utopianism. It can be spiritual or atheistic, communal or hermetic, disciplined or wild. What holds it together is not uniform content but a persistent refusal to let the dominant social order define the limits of the possible.
It is in this context that I want to recommend what I will call a Process Bohemianism—a way of being in the world inspired by Whitehead’s philosophy but animated by the hope for a new kind of civilization: an Ecological Civilization. Such a civilization is not built on domination or endless consumption, but on the flourishing of life. It consists of communities that are creative, compassionate, diverse, inclusive, humane to animals, and good for the Earth—with no one left behind.
In this view, Bohemians are those who resist the forces of conformity, commodification, and cruelty—who refuse to accept the status quo when it alienates, exploits, or deadens the soul. They are artists, gardeners, musicians, mystics, educators, and wanderers of all kinds who dare to imagine and enact alternative ways of living. They dwell in the margins not to escape the world, but to reimagine it. They challenge the assumptions of hyper-individualism, mechanistic thinking, and anthropocentric power, and instead live as if relationship, beauty, and becoming truly mattered.
Process Bohemians are not necessarily moral exemplars or systematic thinkers. They are often inconsistent, improvisational, and unfinished. But they are oriented toward the lure of the possible. They listen for the call of novelty, attend to the aliveness of each moment, and seek to build lives and communities that reflect the deeper harmonies of the universe. Their rebellion is not rooted in despair but in hope—a hope that a better world is still possible, and that art, love, and imagination are vital to its unfolding.
Process System-Builders
While Process Bohemians dwell in the margins, often resisting structure and improvising their way into beauty and justice, they are not alone in the journey toward an Ecological Civilization. Alongside them walk the Process System-Builders—those who seek to construct enduring frameworks, policies, institutions, and philosophies grounded in relationality, creativity, and care. These are the architects, organizers, scholars, policy-makers, and spiritual leaders who work within and across systems to translate vision into form.
If the Bohemian is the dancer who shows what freedom looks like, the System-Builder is the gardener who prepares the soil for that freedom to take root. They are not concerned with control but with coherence. Drawing from Whitehead’s understanding of process as an unfolding web of interdependent becoming, they see systems not as rigid machines but as evolving ecologies—capable of change, growth, and adaptation.
The best of them do not suppress Bohemian impulses; they shelter and amplify them. They know that sustainable change requires both bursts of imaginative disruption and the slow work of shaping collective life. They help weave the ideals of compassion, creativity, diversity, and ecological sustainability into economic structures, educational curricula, political frameworks, religious communities, and cultural practices.
Like their Bohemian counterparts, Process System-Builders recognize that no system is final, and that openness to novelty must always remain at the heart of any design. They, too, are guided by the lure of possibility—but they respond with structure rather than spontaneity, with pattern rather than protest.
Together, Bohemians and System-Builders form a creative tension—a dialectic of becoming. One dances on the edge; the other builds bridges from the center. One deconstructs; the other reconstructs. One speaks in jazz and symbol; the other in architecture and policy. Yet both are needed, and both, in their own way, participate in the sacred work of helping the world become more whole, more alive, and more just.
Beauty
To be sure, many in the process community are both Bohemian in some ways and System-Builders in other ways. Process Bohemianism and Process System-Building form a continuum rather than a dichotomy. A single person might spend one part of their life painting murals in resistance to cultural stagnation and another part drafting policy for inclusive housing. One might improvise music on weekends and teach process theology in a seminary during the week. Another might protest the destructiveness of extractive capitalism while working to design regenerative local economies. These expressions are not contradictory—they are different notes in the same relational symphony.
What unites them—beyond their shared commitment to a world in process—is the pursuit of Beauty. For Process Bohemians, Beauty is found in intensity, immediacy, and rupture: the raw honesty of a poem, the ache of a jazz solo, the sudden illumination of a prophetic word. For Process System-Builders, Beauty emerges in harmony, coherence, and care: a well-designed neighborhood, a compassionate social policy, an inclusive liturgy. Different modes, same lure. Whitehead reminds us that “the teleology of the universe is directed to the production of Beauty,” and this shared telos becomes a bridge between the rebel and the reformer.
This continuum reflects a core insight of process-relational thought: that reality itself is made up of contrasts and complementarities. Novelty and order, freedom and structure, rebellion and reconstruction—all are needed for the ongoing creative advance of the universe. A healthy civilization welcomes the wildness of the artist and the vision of the planner, the refusal of the dissenter and the resolve of the builder. It honors both the spark and the scaffolding.
In the shared vision of an Ecological Civilization, Process Bohemians and Process System-Builders are co-creators. One clears space for new possibilities; the other helps those possibilities take root and flourish. Both live in response to the lure of a more beautiful world. And both, in their own ways, say yes to the call of becoming.
Historical Bohemianism:
A BBC Discussion
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 19th century Parisian philosophy of life lived for art. In 1848 the young Parisian Henri Murger wrote of his bohemian friends: "Their daily existence is a work of genius…they know how to practise abstinence with all the virtue of an anchorite, but if a slice of fortune falls into their hands you will see them at once mounted on the most ruinous fancies, loving the youngest and prettiest, drinking the oldest and best, and never finding sufficient windows to throw their money out of. Then, when their last crown is dead and buried...they go poaching on all the callings that have any connection with art, hunting from morn till night that wild beast called a five franc piece." Bohemianism meant a life lived for art, it meant sexual liberation and freedom from social constraint, but it also meant dodging the landlord and burning your poems to stay warm. How did the garret-philosophy of the Parisian Latin Quarter take over the drawing rooms of Bloomsbury and Chelsea, and why did a French war with necessity emerge as a British life-style as art? With Hermione Lee, Goldsmiths' Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and biographer of Virginia Woolf; Virginia Nicholson, author of Among the Bohemians: Experiments in Living 1900-1939; Graham Robb, writer and biographer of Balzac, Victor Hugo and Rimbaud.
Addendum on Bohemianism
Garret-Philosophy of the Parisian Latin Quarter
The garret-philosophy of the Parisian Latin Quarter is a romantic and intellectual ethos that grew out of 19th-century Bohemian life in the Latin Quarter of Paris—a district teeming with students, poets, philosophers, painters, and revolutionaries. This philosophy wasn’t formalized in treatises; it was lived. It was practiced in cramped garrets (attic rooms), cafés, cheap studios, and smoke-filled salons. Its currency was conversation, passion, imagination, and defiance of bourgeois values.
Key Features of the Garret-Philosophy:
1. Art Over Comfort: To live in a garret was to choose creative freedom over material stability. Artists often endured cold, hunger, and poverty to preserve the sanctity of their work. This wasn't just survival—it was an act of spiritual resistance. As Henri Murger put it in Scènes de la vie de bohème, art was life, and life was to be made poetic.
2. The Fusion of Life and Thought: The garret philosopher didn’t separate theory from existence. Philosophy, poetry, and politics were lived through daily struggles and late-night debates. Existence itself became a canvas—unfinished, contradictory, but authentically one’s own. Thinkers like Nerval and Baudelaire blurred the lines between sanity and mysticism, poetry and metaphysics, often embracing suffering as a condition for insight.
3. Rebellion Through Beauty: In the Latin Quarter, aesthetics became a form of revolution. Beauty—especially nonconforming, strange, or melancholic beauty—was itself a critique of bourgeois dullness and utilitarianism. Cafés such as Le Procope and Café de Flore became hubs where artists and radicals plotted transformation not just of government, but of consciousness.
4. Community of Outsiders: The garret life was rarely solitary in spirit. There was solidarity among the poor, the dreamers, the outcasts. People shared food, ideas, cigarettes, and manifestos. The garret-philosopher was embedded in a web of mutual becoming: art collectives, lovers, rivals, political comrades, and kindred spirits.
5. Melancholy and Joy in Tension: There was always an undertone of melancholy in the Latin Quarter—a recognition of tragedy, impermanence, and longing. But this sadness coexisted with bursts of ecstatic joy: the perfect line of verse, a shared bottle of wine, a spontaneous dance at midnight. Life was both doomed and luminous. This tension fueled much of the creative energy.
Key Features of the Garret-Philosophy:
1. Art Over Comfort: To live in a garret was to choose creative freedom over material stability. Artists often endured cold, hunger, and poverty to preserve the sanctity of their work. This wasn't just survival—it was an act of spiritual resistance. As Henri Murger put it in Scènes de la vie de bohème, art was life, and life was to be made poetic.
2. The Fusion of Life and Thought: The garret philosopher didn’t separate theory from existence. Philosophy, poetry, and politics were lived through daily struggles and late-night debates. Existence itself became a canvas—unfinished, contradictory, but authentically one’s own. Thinkers like Nerval and Baudelaire blurred the lines between sanity and mysticism, poetry and metaphysics, often embracing suffering as a condition for insight.
3. Rebellion Through Beauty: In the Latin Quarter, aesthetics became a form of revolution. Beauty—especially nonconforming, strange, or melancholic beauty—was itself a critique of bourgeois dullness and utilitarianism. Cafés such as Le Procope and Café de Flore became hubs where artists and radicals plotted transformation not just of government, but of consciousness.
4. Community of Outsiders: The garret life was rarely solitary in spirit. There was solidarity among the poor, the dreamers, the outcasts. People shared food, ideas, cigarettes, and manifestos. The garret-philosopher was embedded in a web of mutual becoming: art collectives, lovers, rivals, political comrades, and kindred spirits.
5. Melancholy and Joy in Tension: There was always an undertone of melancholy in the Latin Quarter—a recognition of tragedy, impermanence, and longing. But this sadness coexisted with bursts of ecstatic joy: the perfect line of verse, a shared bottle of wine, a spontaneous dance at midnight. Life was both doomed and luminous. This tension fueled much of the creative energy.