As i said in another post
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I'd say the Elves are not 'evolutionists'. Their natural state is backward looking - they look back to an ideal past, so any change will, to them, be 'devolution', as it is a move away from a more perfect state to a less perfect one. Flieger makes the point that they feel they are being pushed 'backwards' into the future, further & further from the place they want to be. Men, on the other hand, seem to be, psychologically at least, evolutionists, in that they see themselves as moving forward, creating a 'better' world, improving things.
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I wonder whether the breaking of the World with the Fall of Numenor 'forced' a choice on the Elves of ME, between which 'world'/reality they would inhabit. There seems to have been a 'split' between a 'mythic' reality & a 'mundane' reality, with the Elves trying to remain in both worlds, but finding they simply couldn't. Almost in spite of themselves they find themselves inhabiting the mythic reality, but its as if the split between the worlds increases throughout the Third Age, with the Elven Rings acting as devices which hold the two realities together, enabling the Elves to retain contact/crossing points between the mythic & the mundane. When the Rings fail, the two realities finally split apart completely.
Does that make any sense? I tend to phrase my speculations as definitive statements, so please feel free to pull the whole thing apart [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]