Enaction is designed to make the world emerge through the concrete action of each one of us
The Global Enaction Manifesto aims to bring out an eco-systemic wisdom that transforms ourselves and the world we belong to, through the concrete action of each of the subscribers.
Enaction is the term proposed by Francisco Varela together with other researchers to describe the ability of each living being to be ready for action in relation to the context perceived. Each living being, by interacting with this context, makes it concretely real. Enaction emphasizes precisely this possibility to ’emerge’, to make something active that before our concrete manipulation was not given in itself and that only thanks to our actions becomes possible and manifest. Each action becomes a cognitive act, an experience that is embodied in the person and which, if repeated, constitutes it profoundly.
It is not a question of abstract and disembodied knowledge, but of the abilities strictly inherent to our being in the world, with our body and with our concrete possibilities of action. It is a form of ’embodied knowledge’ that finds its expression in the way each of us moves and interacts, directly participating in the creation of our own world with immediacy. This immediacy becomes possible only if the action is repeated so often that it does not require a deliberate analysis: it is no longer necessary to reflect to decide what to do, since it has become an embodied knowledge, which belongs to us deeply.
If this is true for habitual actions in which we develop specific skills that we use unintentionally – such as eating, talking, and walking – it is also true for ethical skills, such as knowing how to respond to the needs of others. The person can practice ethical behaviors by incorporating wisdom into his actions, so that his every action becomes an authentic caring that arises spontaneously.
For this to happen, it is necessary to acquire ethical behaviors by social imitation, as it happens for most of the behaviors learned. It is a form of ‘exemplary contagion’: being an example with one’s actions for others who will follow them.
