In Martin Blumenson's biography of General George Patton, Patton: The Man Behind The Legend, the author focuses more on the personal character and foibles of the celebrated military subject more than his military conquests. Blumenson maintains that Patton was a military genius but the ideals, values and behavior he personified in public served as a façade for a highly insecure and often shallow individual. As Blumenson, author of The Patton Papers and a former member of Patton's staff with unprecedented access to the subject's personal papers, sums up his assessment of Patton as a "sublime irony," painting Patton as a man whose "self-confidence was an act, forced and assumed, put on, riveted to his exterior" (307). This analysis will explore key events in Patton's life related to sociological concepts and socialization, including a comparative analysis of his interaction with varied ethnic, social and political groups. The cultural values and morals most reflected by Patton will also be addressed.
There are a number of key events in the book that relate to topics pertaining to socialization. Patton's dyslexia made him insecure and caused him to suffer from social ostracism and ridicule, something he worked hard and overcame but that left him with an ongoing insecurity to overcompensate and overachieve he could never meet in his own mind. As Blumenson writes, "Succeeding in his endeavors at a terrible cost to himself, Patton south perfection and was never satisfied with is performance" (308). This may explain Patton's need to feel superior to others, including his superiors in many instances. He often bucked the hierarchy in the military and mistrusted personal relationships within social institutions like West Point. He advised his son when he entered the esteemed military academy "to dispense with friends and be a lone wolf" (Mysak 52). Patton's aristocratic bearing ste
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