Zan Shin
In Snowcrash Hiro Protagonist finds himself in a swordfight with a Japanese businessman. This businessman not only has his limbs removed – he is decapitated in the metaverse – all because he fought with Zan Shin.
Stephenson never tries to explain the concept of Zan Shin entirely but bothers enough to tell you that it’s something on the order of the emotional intensity a high school football coach might exhort of his players. Give it 110% out there! Yeah, right.
As a result of South Dakotan friends I’ve found myself full of Zan Shin; South Dakota is a football state and football movies (two of which I’ve seen recently) thrust the notion forward with the unabashed myopia of a Harlequin romance book on love.
The mystical zealousness of Zan Shin isn’t the only point in football films. There are so many other symbols to pay attention to – the dictator coach: a man of such compunction that no one dare challenge him. Never wrong and so single mindedly focused on his goals that he makes them right. There is the ever smiling, ever silent wife. Well, she does get a line about ¾ through the film, right when the dictator becomes slightly unsure of himself, something along the lines of:
“You know why you did It. You did It because It was the right thing to do. I believe in you”
There is the Zan Shin male bonding: the idea that no individual is perfect but a group of imperfect people can be perfect. As long as they all reach deep inside and give that 110%. It’s so moving.
I can’t tell the story like Stephenson but in the end, as Hiro is fighting the Japanese businessman, he takes advantage of the emotional zeal and “rightness” of his opponent. He understands that his opponent learned his Zan Shin by studying Kendo and Kendo is structured on rules that make fighting pretty but not effective. In Kendo, you’re not supposed to strike a person’s genitals. Or legs. Hiro doesn’t have any Zan Shin. He simply cuts off the Japanese businessman’s legs and then finishes his dirty work while the man is crippled.
I think the reason we create symbols with Zan Shin is because ultimately the world is out of our control. To exact a measure of psychological order we invent things like token housewives, Zan Shin and Primordial Instinct. We hope that if we become Primordial when necessary, use a lot of Zan Shin and have an occasional backup from the otherwise silent housewife, we can succeed. We’d never expect our legs to be cut off.
But there are people out there who, just like me, think that life is a 1996 playoff game between the Knicks and Bulls: you are the Knicks, Life is the Bulls and Fate is Michael Jordan. We have no Zan Shin.
11:46:23 AM 
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