The Only Time Is Now; Sartre and Rilke Defend Existentialism Against Quietist Attacks

Many critics have accused existentialism of being a quietist’s pursuit. Due to the existential tendency to bring up more questions while providing very few answers, they held that the philosophical school was nothing more than a contemplative study that discouraged scholarly action.

However, Sartre could not disagree more. Sartre argues that the cultivation of an existential orientation, will inspire action, rather than passivity.  Sartre explains that the fundamental existential belief is that each individual is radically ALONE in life. Sartre continues that any person who ascribes to this cardinal existential tenant, will understand that they must complete for themselves, any course of action which they find meaningful. Existential practitioners know that their radical freedoms qualify them as the only ones capable of making meaningful choices for themselves. They may either act in the name of their meaningful desires, or watch as action fails to occur. This gives Sartre confidence that they will therefore choose personal action, over stagnation.  

Sartre claims that not only will existential reasoning lead an individual to take up meaningful action, but it will inspire an urgency in her as well. Because humans are not only alone in their choices, but also in their death, Sartre postulates that those meaningful things which we did for ourselves, will be the only things left with us when we die.  Because we do not have prior knowledge of our finitude, we could die at any moment. The existential practitioner therefore, does not know how much time he has to make meaningful decisions for himself. He will therefore be filled with an urgency to make choices and seize action immediately. As a result, Sartre claims, awareness of radical freedom and ignorance of proximity to finitude, will work together to inspire immediate action towards inherently valuable causes.

However, Sartre was not alone in defending his beloved existentialism from scathing quietist attacks— The work of Rainer Maria Rilke in The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Briggs fully supports Sartre’s position. In one excerpt from the work, the reader finds the character Briggs, alone in his ‘little room’, considering the possibilities of the world. His contemplations reveal a set of personal beliefs parallel with Sartre’s claims.  

First, Rilke allows his character to realize his true solitude. He allows Briggs to feel the possibility that he is the only human being who ever lived, to have a meaningful thought; to understand his infinite freedoms. Briggs describes himself as the “first comer”— the sole arrival at an earth-shattering realization. Briggs suggests that perhaps no one in the world before him ever had an original thought, and that perhaps they never would. Briggs thus accepts the possibility that he is the only man in existence to have ever created a meaningful thought. Upon this discovery he states, “…if it even has some semblance of possibility— then surely, for the sake of everything in the world, something must be done”. Here, Briggs connects his radical solitude with a personal motivation to action, and in doing so, aligns himself with Sartre’s position.

The assertion that something must be done reflects the same eerie urgency found in Sartre’s theories. As Briggs thinks, “Perhaps the only thing that matters, is what I decide to do”, he is immediately overwhelmed with the desire to actualize his meaningful thought. The existential Briggs is in a frantic rush to do so because he feels life is short and he could die at any moment! Despite his perceived shortcomings, he accepts his responsibility to act, as he may be the only one in existence who is able to. He thus feels he must act NOW before he dies, and the world is robbed of its only chance of meaning.  Thus this urgency works to, once again, align Briggs with Sartre’s position.

Certainly, Sartre and Rilke’s philosophical contributions worked together to paint existentialism as harboring urgency rather than quietism and promoting personal accountability above silent herd-mentality.