Why do we Criticize?

By and large, people criticize for survival and/or for seeking attention. But, few criticize for well-being of the society. Survival instincts and attention seeking/identification belong to the basic traits of humans. These traits influenced prominently for building value system in the society. Fortunately or unfortunately, we associated Money, Status, Information, etc as societal attributes to our value system. Whoever has these in surplus matter most than those who don't have. Here, we concentrate just on information, which is a key attribute (in the value system), for explaining why we criticize, as criticism constitutes sharing of information. There are two types of information that gets shared: good and bad. Criticizing for good to happen is constructive criticism, whereas criticizing for bad to happen is destructive criticism. Generally speaking, the prevailing criticism is destructive criticism. That is, people are curious to know bad or weird^[1] things than good things; thus fueling bad criticism. In my view, I guess that this is due to survival instincts everybody has. To explain, if you propagate good about people around you, there may be a threat to your survival. In other words, propagating bad about your neighbor could boost your survival in the society.

Secondly, as said, humans love attention or identification. Knowing something important that others don't know is definitely a value to you, at least to show your uniqueness. And it's norm that society appreciates value, and values those who have value. You knowing something will attract those who wants to know something, especially bad or weird things. And people attract to those who know something, so that they in turn attract those who wants to know something. Most of the times, the information shared is bad (such as rumors/gossips) than good.

Some criticize something because they have no other choice apart from living with it. For example, if your manager is a bully, you criticize him/her all the time, unless there is an immediate choice of you moving under other manager or leaving the company. It's the same with other relationships also. Once you moved out of it, the amount of criticism will definitely reduces, and eventually fades away.

Lastly, few people who either don't care or feel safe of their survival and identity in the society criticize for its(society) well-being. There people are rare.

References:
[1]. Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time, by Michael Shermer, 1997. (Book: Amazon)