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Originally Posted by davem
Yet we have Tolkien's own assessment of the Elves' motives (can't say which letter, as I've just found the quote on a search) :
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But the Elves are not wholly good or in the right. Not so much because they had flirted with Sauron; as because with or without his assistance they were 'embalmers'. They wanted to have their cake and eat it: to live in the mortal historical Middle-earth because they had become fond of it (and perhaps because they there had the advantages of a superior caste), and so tried to stop its change and history, stop its growth, keep it as a pleasaunce, even largely a desert, where they could be 'artists' and they were overburdened with sadness and nostalgic regret.
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This to me bears out some of my suspicions about Galadriel. In Middle-earth she is able to have her own realm and to exercise power, something she desires. That she desires it is borne out in both the wooing gifts of Celebrimbor which will bestow greater power, and her comment about the One Ring that she has 'desired' it at some point, whether to see if she can be the one to destroy it or use it I'm not commenting on here. When she says she will 'diminish' and go West, it is literally that - she will give up notions of power and independence as in the Undying Lands there are undoubtedly many Elves greater than she is and she will once more be but one of many.