In tired western intellectual circles, one often hears it said that the best friend of literature was, after all, a man with little intelligence but large scissors. In dictatorships, he follows the formulaic instructions of the rulers by crossing out forbidden words, which gives writers who evade the censorship laws an opportunity for refined communication.       In such conditions, readers are interested in the many nuances of communication. That is enviable in the contemporary public life of the western countries, which increasingly recalls election by acclamation. But prison sentences, death threats and publication bans can hardly be envied by even the most ambitious of writers.       The International PEN Club does valuable work on the part of imprisoned writers and freedom of speech. This year, the organisation's world congress is held in Helsinki, although a more suitable location might have been Teheran or Peking. So it occurs to me to ask how we manage here in Finland without censorship.       Happily, my concern is premature. The man with the scissors is alive and well in all the western countries, even if he wears a different suit from that of his Chinese colleagues. He lives in the editorial offices of periodicals and newspapers, in the marketing departments of big businesses and, of course, on the staff of book publishing companies. He represents a phenomenon which the Finnish reporter Rax Rinnekangas has christened everyday violence.       Rinnekangas gave an example: the Finnish weekly news magazine Suomen Kuvalehti ('The Finnish illustrated news') decided to publish an article about Europe's biggest new art gallery, the Bilbao Guggenheim museum. Impressive photographs were commissioned, but the critical edge of the piece was blunted by the editors because, apparently, it did not interest the magazine's readers. The unwanted text was a report of the unscrupulous means by which the American Guggenheim Foundation forced its way into Europe and got the Basques to foot the bill.      The editorial motive was, apparently, not the need for a cover-up, but the desire to provide its readers with a service. And the readers had no alternative but to be serviced.      It is inclear how the critical intelligentsia intends to respond to censorship like that I have just described, because it is non-deliberate, non-principled and invisible, a silencing concealed in the heart of the market mechanism, which it is difficult to resist. There are, however, signs that writers are seeking a new position in a market economy dominated by stupidity and good intentions.      Jyrki Kiiskinen       Editor-in-Chief Top of page