Patriots: Born 1920–1937

It would be naive to assume that life was easy prior to the Patriot value-formation period. On the other hand, it can be argued that life experiences were somehow more consistent, measured, local, and familiar prior to the advent of mass communication, industrialization, global depression, and world war.

With the Patriots, one encounters a Value Population “forced” to collectively accept a complex, unknown, and seemingly dangerous future. While mass prosperity and cultural freedom beckon in this new age, it is the collective pain that fate inflicts on this group, primarily via economic disappointment, but also through significant changes in the established social fabric, that most clearly leaves a lasting mark on their values. For this group there is a strong sense that life-changing decisions are made on their behalf—ones that they do not fully participate in making, that they do not necessarily want, and that at times hurt them badly.

Throughout the social commentary of the Patriot period, there is a deserved litany of suspicion regarding bankers, businessmen, brokers, and most politicians. Subjected to the grim residue of war, disease, and want, Patriots, more than any other Value Population, are about exercising caution, mistrusting the motives of others, keeping their hands on their wallets, and most of all, attending to the rules and rituals of the families, friends, and social equals who validate and protect their own stash of valuables and values.