Noreena Herz topples from pedestal at Writers Unlimited

"Don't listen to the experts, they are actually always wrong." The gist of 'Eyes wide open', Noreena Hertz's latest book, is clear. That she is an expert herself, and therefore her views should be distrusted, makes sense. That the conversation she had on the subject with former politician Femke Halsema became increasingly bizarre was not so logical. Downright shocking was the fall that the terror of all the world's bankers took at the end.

That humans are bad at making decisions is common knowledge. An octopus predicted the outcome of the competition better than all human experts put together during the last World Cup. A gorilla throwing bananas has for years proved to be a more reliable stock market predictor than all human stock market watchers in the world. Belgium seems to have come through the crisis better because it had no government during the first years of the recession: no one could make stupid decisions, and that seems a good thing.

Noreena Hertz, who predicted the banking crisis in 2005, and whose books on economic issues have been on the international bestseller lists, has now published a self-help book about the distrust we should harbour of those in power and the experts who show us the way. Femke Halsema interviewed her during Writers Unlimited about her motivations. But rather than conducting a friendly interview, the former Green Left list leader chose to go on the attack.

Whether it was not a very elitist position, to require everyone to prepare and read up better than the experts advising them? Isn't that far too much to ask of the simple citizen? If doctors are wrong so often (1 in 5 diagnoses in America turn out to be wrong), surely it is impractical to make the entire population better versed in the medical expertise available on the internet? Of course, sometimes we had to follow the advice of a true expert, but not always, the expert replied, and it became a mantra that increasingly killed the discussion. Of course facts were important, and we had to do everything we could to get those facts to the surface no matter what. And yes, help is welcome, but don't blindly trust even the people who help you.

Herz did not want to enter the debate, but was only interested in selling her book. For some among the audience, the writer, who is often mentioned in the same breath as Naomi Klein, then already fallen off her pedestal. Indeed, any kind of depth seemed absent. In front of the rest of the audience, Herz went down rock hard when answering a question from a spectator. The fan asked her how important she thought the actions of whistleblowers like Wikileaks' Julian Assange and NSA leaker Edward Snowden were. The answer from the woman who once advised the Russian government was shocking to many: "I am not happy with the revelations when it comes to matters of national security. I believe it is important that some facts remain secret. Blindly."

The mouths of Femke Halsema - and many others in the room - fell open so far that further discussion was no longer possible.