Because we're persons, all things are, in a way, personal. However, I feel there's a distinction between standing up for a principle or ideal and wanting to kill the men directly responsible for the death of your mother/lover/favorite uncle/etc.
I can think of several real-life examples of the former, among both violent and non-violent types, but I can think of very few Hollywood examples. [ Parent ]
Most people only act on the personal. There are exceptions, but those people are not only few and far between, they're generally held to be quite odd by the rest of society and end up being categorized as sociopathic. Consequently, I think that if you read the biographies of most violent revolutionaries, you'll see that while they believe in their ideals with the whole hearts, it was the personal that actually motivated them to action.
I see your Unabomber (an example I've got problems with) and raise you a Ché. He could have lived his life out in happy middle-class security - as the rest of his family did. He had no axe to grind with Batista – having never been to Cuba and having no connection to the country. He had no personal fight in the Congo, which he left the security of Cuba for. And he had no personal fight in Bolivia, where he died.
Was it personal? Personal in the sense that he deeply believed in the righteousness of Communism, the pan-national unity of the oppressed, and the ultimate victory of his cause. But I don't think we can point to any personal incident (such as "capitalists killed my mom") that proves his Communism was just a front for some grudge. He did experience the poverty of South America as a tourist when he was young – but so did many people. His arrival at violent Communism was the product of study and consideration – not a dramatic, personal, conversion moment.
I'll also point to the hundreds of men who joined the anti-fascist Lincoln Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. Many of the LB members were Jews, so one could argue that they saw it as a round-about way to get at Hitler, and that's the revenge angle. But many were not. Some were Commies who thought fascism was anti-worker. Many were just strong believers in democracy and thought fascism was wrong (these gentlemen actually fought Communist control of the Brigades - thinking Communism was no better than fascism).
The three men whose suicide mission formed the basis of "For Whom the Bell Tolls" were a college student who had never voted, a self-professed apolitical truck driver, and an ex-Communist Coney Island strong man and juggler who joined the Brigades but fought the Communist leadership of same. They all risked their lives in a country they never visited to fight an enemy that never hurt them personally in a war their home country told them they it was illegal to join. (They actually survived their suicide mission, but that's just a little tidbit in case you were curious.)
I agree that everything is personal in the sense that we must act out of our experience and our personal connection to the world is what we must measure all things by. But I meant personal as in "Franco killed my father, and for this, he must die," not "I personally believe that fascism must be stopped, violently if necessary."
As for being considered sociopaths, unless they win, revolutionaries are always defined as nuts, crazy, psycho, fanatical, or what have you. John Brown was insane to think only bloodshed would end slavery, until he was proven right. [ Parent ]
