Mans, you are correct. The Elves were exactly this. They would not distance themselves from nature with technology, they did not desire change in this way. As Tolkien states, their immortal lives -- bound up with the natural stuff of the Universe (as we debated in a thread of mine a few weeks back, actually, not so much the biological world as the world of
existence the way they were created; they were attached unbreakably to Ea, and their lives were its. They were against change to its eternal rythm, that they were part of, and also unwilling to distance themselves from the natural world that they saw as beautiful and were the mediators of) -- their minds dwelled in the past and its beauty, wishing to continue this, rather than thinking ahead to ways of drawing outside power to oneself.
The Elvish influence on Men, in the first Three Ages, restrained Men at first; but when the Dominion of Men finally -- inevitably -- came, the developmental capacity of our minds was unleashed. This fact has been discussed once or twice before.
If I may, there's an excellent quote found in a Terry Pratchet book I once read that sums this up nicely (Pratchett is a very funny comedy writer, which may seem unfitting [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img], but he does in fact seem to be discussing a real moral point under it all in every work; he's a bit of a satirist). It's about the emergence of guns as weapons, in Pratchett's invented (Real-World-mirroring) Discworld.
Quote:
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(something like this)[i]Crossbows or spears or the like were different, they just stored up your power really. But gonnes (guns)... they gave you power from somewhere else.[i]
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This is exactly it. The Elves were only happy with being 'natural', living within the bounds of this, and would detest guns or industrial machines that (apart from being destructive) are not part of this. They are powers in their own right,
manufactured and used by Men. They distance Men from the substance of Arda, that the Elves love.
Men, being temporary -- more a part of the biological world than Elves, who are more its mediators -- on the Earth have no such qualms. It is in the nature of Man to think of and use such things.