Can the lust for power lead to the loss of humanity?

Greedy is different than lustful. Greed drives humanity, lust stunts it. Lusting for something is to crave what you can't have. Greed is what drives us to pursue things that are within our reach.

Do you even know what you're debating? Just because you can redefine my words, it does not change their intent.

We're talking about lust for power. People attempting to seize power because they have none of their own.

The actual lust for power doesn't always end when one gets power. There's the continued lust for more and more.

I have a school assessment on Macbeth and am focussing on the lust for power throughout the play. I am glad someone else sees it as a main theme. I have related it to politicians, dictators and celebrities that have acted stupidly or gone crazy under the pressure of being famous / having power.

Consider Nietzsche's Will to Power. He spoke of Power as the fundamental energy that moves the Cosmos and generates the beauty of our artistic endeavors; it is all that contributes to our growth and that of others. It's the perverse use of power to diminish others that is what I reject. The perversion of Power IS the loss of humanity.

Obviously the power to make people's lives better or to create beauty is a good thing.

The original question involved the lust for power.

Lust is intense desire; overwhleming desire.

The term has been misused to connote a positive condition ( e.g. lust for life) but, at least to me, it is a negative state of mind. No good comes from wanting something so intensely that the desire either overwhelms rational thinking or instructs one's every decision and action.

Lusting for something guarantees the perversion of that which you seek. Anyone who truly lusts for the power to do good is fooling themselves or others. They are lusting for the power to control other people's lives.

It (lust for power) has certainly been a common element in the human condition for a very long time, and I would suggest that it is the primary reason for so much of the world's suffering.

People talk of religion being the bane of humanity, but it is individual's lust for power, using religion as a vehicle, that is the canker. Religion, nationalism, ideology, they have all been used as vehicles for obtaining power.