Page 145 - Religion in the Media Age Media, Religion & Culture

134 Reception of religion and media

educational level in these preferences. In the case of the Castellos there is
a particular distinction they make between what we might call “screen”
media (television, film, videos, video games, computers) and other media.
There is some insight into this in Butch’s recounting of a recent Nightline
segment on artificial intelligence. Citing his fears about a future where
machines come to be in charge and the humans are there to assist them,
he says,

And, they ended the program on a very, very, sort of frightening note
in which they said, I don’t know that I will say it just right, but to
paraphrase, “imagine a day when . . . imagine a force so insidious that
it would be able to literally take control of the mind of your child and
take over your child’s consciousness, control your child’s thoughts and
therefore control the future of your species in so doing. Subvert your
species.” Then it showed images of children in front of video games
and their eyes (he drags at his lower lids with his fingers). And just this
sort of blank look in their faces. I really strongly see it, not necessarily
as a conspiracy that is being put upon us, but something that we are
unwittingly falling into.

The image of children, glued to screens, is clearly a compelling one for
Butch, and an object lesson that resonated with his ideas about television
and other screen media. The trope is a powerful one, so powerful that the
producers of the Nightline segment in question themselves chose to use it
as a metaphor for domination by machines. Cultural ideas such as this one
are so widespread, it seems, that even members of the media fraternity
themselves rather unquestioningly subscribe to them.
Policing media plays an important and definitive role for Butch and
Priscilla, as we will see. They connect their ideas about the appropriateness
of different kinds of media to their religious and spiritual beliefs and prac-
tices. The Interviewer asks Butch if their media policies as a family are
related to other aspects of their spirituality or lifestyle.

Oh yes [he smiles and nods]. These things are very related. Our spiri-
tual beliefs have led us to reduce the noise in our external and internal
environments and the media is definitely a part of that. We are macro-
biotic. We try to eat slow and make meal times a time of connection.
We live in an area that supports that way of being. The kids’ school, of
course, is a part of that lifestyle choice as well.
The Interviewer asks when and how these lifestyle and spirituality choices
entered their lives. Butch replies that while living in Japan for four years,
they first encountered esoteric Buddhism, which he describes as “just a
calming of the mind . . . a stilling of the sea.” He continued,