Managing Public Meetings

Abstract

There is one type of consultation which is so common, and so dangerous, that it deserves special attention — the public meeting. With the baiting of bears and badgers being now illegal, when miscreants are no longer put in stocks so that the populace can throw rotten fruit at them and with the end of feeding Christians to lions, there is a vacuum. However, the nature of mankind does not change so dramatically in a few short centuries, and this need to hunt and mock is still alive and well. Certainly, it is more civilized, but today the public meeting on a contentious project easily fills the void left by the badgers, bears and Romans. Of course, that is not to say that all those who attend public meetings do so out of a sense of sadistic voyeurism, but there is an element of excitement, the thrill of the chase, which is naturally attractive to part of the human psyche.