Hakuna Matata: Problem-Free Philosophy?

Have you seen Disney's animated feature The Lion King? It's a pretty good story, and you should take a look if you've never had the chance. Maybe you could watch it with a kid if you feel strange about watching it alone...but you'll need to be prepared to explain a few things about the philosophical meaning to more inquisitive children afterward.

In The Lion King, several cartoon animals face the types of problems that come up each and every day on the African Savannah. Death, food shortage, lion pride politics, romance, annoying bird assistants, the conflicts are nearly endless. With so much going on in the story, the writers developed a vibrant underlying philosophical ecosystem as active as the one present in the variety of animals in the film. In this post I only have time for a cursory view of the highlighted philosophy from the movie, the philosophy of Hakuna Matata. (Though I may re-visit this film in the future. I'm finding it chock full of philosophical interestingness!)

"Hakuna matata," literally translated from the original Swahili, means "there are no worries here." In The Lion King, the main propagators of this philosophy are Timon (a meerkat masterfully voiced by Nathan Lane) and Pumbaa (a warthog voiced by Ernie Sabella). These two are an unlikely but lovable pair of jokesters who foist this philosophy on young king Simba after he ostracizes himself from lion society. The main thrust of the hakuna matata philosophy can be derived from the song these two sing by the same name (scored by Elton John, lyrics by Tim Rice).

Hakuna matata
What a wonderful phrase.
Hakuna matata
Ain't no passin' craze!
It means no worries
For the rest of your days.
It's our problem-free philosophy,
Hakuna matata.

It's really quite a catchy tune and is stuck in my head at the moment. Hopefully this link helps get it stuck in your head too. Timon and Pumbaa explain in the song that Pumbaa, much like Simba, is an outcast from his society (though in Pumbaa's case it's due to extreme flatulence). His primary coping mechanism is to not worry about it. In fact, this is really the only tenet of the hakuna matata philosophy that anyone need remember. "No worries," applies to everything from being completely rejected by family, friends, and society to munching on disgusting grubs for nutrition. It seems like a pleasant enough guiding principle for life at the outset, but when applied to reality, it yields some terrifying results.

First of all, it gets Simba, a lion and carnivore of the first order, to eat bugs from under a log. Then he grows up and turns into a hedonistic jerk by the time his boyhood girlfriend Nala finds him. To top it all off, he initially has no interest in saving his pride from the wrath of his evil uncle Scar, and would rather just lie around all day with Timon and Pumbaa like a bunch of gonge-toking hippies. Don't worry about it, hakuna matata. Nothing but dirty bugs to eat? Hakuna matata. Evil uncle took over as king and is driving lion society into the crapper? Hakuna matata. Hyenas gnawing your legs off from under you? Hakuna matata. No freaking worries. This is principle?

Any philosophy that puts a grass skirt and lay on a meerkat and an apple in the mouth of a warthog (in clear reference to roasted pig at a Hawaiian luau) while they mug to the camera certainly has a problem or two!

So what? So there's some questionable philosophy in a cartoon movie for kids. So. What? Well, every piece of art (written art in particular), from an episode of Rosanne to Shakespeare's Hamlet has a point it's trying to get across to the audience. In the case of a Disney feature of The Lion King's importance, the audience contains an incredibly large number of children. Even though Simba ultimately mostly rejects hakuna matata in favor of a life in politics, it is presented throughout the movie as a valid, happy, and successful way of life. It seems to be presented as more important than (though not exclusive to) the equally dangerous "Circle of Life" philosophy. As I said, there's a lot to get into in a full examination of the movie, and I may do more in the future. This movie was heavily imprinted on me (all of this is written basically from memory) and I was even probably a little "too old" for it when it first came out. The sort of long-term damage that fables of all kinds can do to impressionable and curious kids is very real. Though this blog post is partly tongue-in-cheek, the relevance of that fact is as strong in The Lion King as it is in something like the story of the three pigs and the big bad wolf. These are moral instructions for kids, and if we want to live in a more moral world, we'd do well to make sure we're not feeding junk philosophy to the hungry brains of children.

So, hakuna matata: is it problem-free philosophy, as advertised? Far from it. Hedonistic procrastination is ultimately an extraordinarily lonely way of life, because it doesn't take into account the cooperative nature of productive interaction. So how should we live? I guess I owe it to my readers to actually lay out my philosophical position before I go much further. I think I've found a great starting point, but it's something that should exist separate from a post on The Lion King though, so I'll begin a multi-part series on my philosophy soon.