This is another test article. It’s about a Swedish phenomenon called Opinion corridor, the tendency to limit what’s accepted to debate.
Opinion corridor (Swedish: åsiktskorridor, Norwegian: meningskorridor) refers to a sociopolitical phenomenon that has been observed during the beginning of the 21st century in Sweden, and to some extent also in Norway. The expression itself was originally used in 2013 by Henrik Oscarsson (sv), professor in political science at the University of Gothenburg, as a metaphor for the limits of what’s commonly accepted to debate.[1][2]
The concept is similar to the Overton window, which assumes a sliding scale of legitimate political conversation, and to Hallin’s spheres, which assumes that the press implicitly groups issues into questions of wide consensus, legitimate controversy, and deviance. The Swedish Language Council has included the word åsiktskorridor in its 2014 list of neologisms.[1]
In February 2015, Expressen editor Ann-Charlotte Marteus (sv) published an apology for being part of “constructing a corridor that prevented a constructive debate about migration and integration”. She wrote that it was something that she started doing around 2002, when language tests were being debated and the Sweden Democrats started to become more influential. She was also afraid that Sweden’s political climate would become more similar to that of Denmark.[4]
Sweden didn’t become like Denmark, thank goodness. Maybe the opinion corridor helped. But the price was high: widespread self-censorship, a fear to examine reality objectively, a diminished belief in the power of arguments. And as a result a dumbed-down public, moral-panicked politicians and social problems that should have gotten attention and been dealt with a long time ago. It proved to be an expensive corridor.
We live in a time where it’s considered brave to think freely, despite that it’s not forbidden.
— Alice Teodorescu, Göteborgs-Posten, 6 March 2015[6]