[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

I must say that this is an interesting philosophical discussion. My opinion is that what we call "good" and "evil", are, in fact indicators of the balance between love of self and love of one's fellows. The good characters in Middle Earth show compassion, self-sacrifice, courage, etc. because they act for the common good over and above their own interests. Characters such as Melkor, Sauron and even Feanor place their own interests before those of others, even to the point of considering the welfare of the world in general to be irrelevant. Even the Nazgul, thralls of Sauron though they may be, were only ensnared in the first place because they desired dominion over others, betrayed by their own greed.

I see this as a recurring theme throughout Tolkien's work: The idea that the love of self leads not to personal happiness, but to self-defeat and universal misery. For example, Feanor neither regains the Silmarils, nor personally avenges his father, but he does divide the Eldar against themselves and subject his followers to abject suffering. Melkor, far from ruling the world, is exiled from it, destroying a great deal of beauty along the way and Sauron, in his attempt to rule all the Rings of Power, creates an object the destruction of which will bring him to ruin, whilst reducing the power of other, more helpful rings.

I think that this is probably why individually the "good" characters are unequal to the task of defeating evil. Their strength lies in co-operation; the sharing of authority, knowledge and responsibility, which the dark powers cannot emulate or understand because of fear of betrayal, a weakness which is itself a result of selfishness.

On the evil of hobbits, well, that's been discussed, but I wouldn't say that they're alone in casting out the bad apples: All levels of ME seem to operate in the same way, highest to lowest. Evil is always alone.

Sounds a bit high-flown, I know, but that's my view.