Overdetermined
The term overdetermined, as used in social theory, was introduced by Althusser, who took it from Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams. Wikipedia offers us a nice, concise, explanation of Althusser’s usage:
Althusser used the idea of overdetermination as a way of thinking about the multiple, often opposed, forces active at once in any political situation, without falling into an over-simple idea of these forces being simply “contradictory.”
A perfect example of such overdetermination are The Five Friendlies, the official mascots of the 2008 Beijing Olympics:
These five cartoon animals (one of which isn’t even an animal) carry a hell of a symbolic burden. They symbolize: the olympic rings, animals (what animal is “fire”?), the “landscape and dreams and aspirations of people from every part of the vast country of China”, the “five elements of nature”, traditional Chinese culture, the five blessings “prosperity, happiness, passion, health and good luck” … and when you put all their names together, it spells out 北京歡迎你 (”Beijing welcomes you.”).
I haven’t even gone into the personality profiles of each of The Five Friendlies, like that of Beibei, the fish:
Among the Five Friendlies, Beibei is known to be gentle and pure. Strong in water sports, she reflects the blue Olympic ring.
I’m glad that the endangered Tibetan antelope. or chiru, is getting some recognition as a cartoon mascot. The Hindu reports that it was a tough competition:
To win this coveted position, the chiru competed with a dozen other contenders, including the tiger, the red-crowned crane and the dragon. “The selection will certainly draw more attention to the animals’ endangered status worldwide. This is significant because the chiru was hunted for its wool to weave shahtoosh shawls that are allegedly still in demand among some elite sections of society in India and abroad.
The Olympic slogan of “One World, One Dream” may well hold hope for coexistence of the species with inspiration from the Five Friendlies,” said Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) executive director Vivek Menon.
For more on The Five Friendlies, including a history of Olympic mascots, check out this post over at Mutant Frog (via Global Voices).
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Comments
I meant ontology, of course, rather than epistomology.
According to the Friesian School website (scroll down), the Chinese have historically categorized many things by fives. However, the five classic Chinese elements are: wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. These are represented by: dragon, phoenix, caldron, tiger, and tortoise. Once again, a non-animal figures among four animals.
tf,the five elements(a.k.a as “wu xing”) of China (and their each representing color,less commonly known) are:metal(white),wood(green),water(black),fire(red) and earth(yellow).It’s the basics of Fengshui theory and many other beliefs.Due to my limited knowledge I have not heard of their traditional symbolic animals.Ancient Chinese people believed these five elements formed the world.In Japan however,they put wood before the other four.So the website isn’t being very accurate about the order.I’m guessing Pandas eat bamboo and they rely heavily on the natural environment,thus “forest”(the Chinese character for “wood” also means “forest”).And as you may have already know,Huanhuan as fire represents the Olympic torch.
However,according to the designer,Five Friendlies represent the five elements merely because the number Five is symbolic(”wu” in “wu xing”,mentioned above,is “five”).He used the fish as the East,the panda as the South,the Tibetan antelope as the West,and the swallow as the North.The fire is in the middle,meaning the sparkles of the meeting between China and the world.
[…] While I earlier made fun of the The Five Friendlies, the official mascots of the Beijing Olympics, I really like the pictograms they have chosen to represent each of the sports. Found via the increasingly prolific Pinyin News (this summer has been chock full of great posts), here are the pictograms, along with the ancient seal script characters which inspired them: […]
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An anthropologist and documentary filmmaker, 
Is fire the odd-friendly-out, or is it the panda? Just as fire is not an animal, forest is not an element… or is it? The other friendlies represent water (the fish), fire, earth (the antelope), and air (the bird). But, according to the Beijing Olympics web site, there are five elements, including forest, which is reprsented by the panda.
Is this something the Beijing Olympic organizers made up, or does Chinese epistomology admit five elements, as opposed to the four traditionally recognized in Western epistomology?
In a related question, can we call the ’70s R&B group Earth Wind and Fire, the Three Represents?