Viner rejected Simons as an ally because he saw ideology as violating academic objectivity.

Evidence

The relationship between Viner and Simons was distinctly colder. As early as 1925 Viner was expressing reservations about Simons’s capabilities, writing to Knight that although he had “no misgivings as to his intellectual capacity,” he was skeptical of Simons’s “capacity for sustained effort not yielding constant mental exhilaration.” … To Viner, the role of the academic was to provide dispassionate and, to the extent possible, objective analysis divorced from po liti cal ideology or rhetorical devices. He believed that Simons’s work contravened these professional ideals, and he never altered this impression or perceived him as a peer or ally. — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 113

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Viner saw Simons’s polemical style as violating the academic ideal of objective analysis. — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 113; Viner refused AJC membership to preserve his perceived academic objectivity — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 129

Broader Connections

• Viner saw Simons’s polemical style as violating the academic ideal of objective analysis. #corroborates (1.00) — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 113
• Viner refused AJC membership to preserve his perceived academic objectivity #expands (0.78) — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 129