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Originally Posted by The Saucepan Man
This is an interesting point. The Elves yearn for a lost past and so attempt to "embalm" the world to preserve as much of that ideal past as they can. This tendency in Elves, together with their immortality, has always seemed rather "unnatural" to me, since it seems to work against and suppress the natural cycle of life, which is very much concerned with sweeping away the old to make way for the new. In this sense, Men in Tolkien's world come across to me as much more "natural" creatures than Elves (which is, I suppose, pradoxical in some ways, with Elves being portrayed as very much more in touch with "nature").
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I've always seen this paradox as inherent in Elvish nature - its not 'wrong' its simply the way they approach things. 'Eternity is in love with the productions of time' as Blake said. They are 'outside' nature - for all their love of it it is different. Everythin else dies, they remain. Art is their only refuge & it would seem that what drives them is a desire to make the natural world like themselves - immortal. That, I think, accounts for their sadness. It is also what drives them to create the Rings. Their 'fall' in this comes not from their yearning but from their desire to 'actualise' it. They seek to dominate what they love, & re-make it 'in their own image' - Tolkien says they 'flirted with Sauron' - & I don't think he was simply referring to accepting his aid in the making of the Rings. Rather, I think he meant they 'flirted' with what he symbolised - control & domination of all life.
Of course, in the context of your point, 'progree' itself can be motivated by the same desire - control, domination & coercion of the world. So, even Men can 'flirt with Sauron' - not in the Elvish sense of 'embalming' but in the sense of wishing to re-make the world in our own image, the way we think it ought to be. And at least the Elves were driven by the desire to make the world
beautiful. We don't even have that. We are closer to Sauron than they in that. Sauron desired control of the world without any thought as to whether it was beautiful or ugly & if anything that sums Men up perfectly. Perhaps if we were more like the Elves then we could call our changes 'progress'. As it is, I don't think we can. The Elves love the world for what it was, we love it for what it could be. They look backward, we look forward. They are driven by regret, we by hope - but I don't think either of those things necessarily manifest in our actions. Which should we make our judgement of the different races on - what drives us, or what we actually do?