Tolkien saw the elves as “man before the fall.” He did not, however, altogether idealize them. There was an anti-life aspect to the elves in his mythology in their desire to preserve and live in the past. Tolkien disparagingly referred to them several times as “embalmers.” Despite their love of nature, the elves were the opposite of Taoists in that they resisted change and sought to live in an “embalmed” past. In a letter Tolkien writes,

""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 pleasance, even largely a desert, where they could be ‘artists’—and they were overburdened with sadness and nostalgic regret.""

If you're a fan of JRR Tolkien's stuff, there is some uncomfortable stuff for even mainline conservatives to acknowledge in this as well

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5630059&forum_id=2:#48309712)