The existence of alternatives being interpreted as criticism is interesting. Why do people interpret it that way? What if it actually is a criticism in a way?
If you were doing one thing a certain way your whole life, but then you see a new alternative, isn’t it rational to evaluate it? You might evaluate that you have invested a lot in your current ways and exploring new options isn’t likely to be profitable. But that’s an evaluation too. If you evade making a proper evaluation then that’s a criticism of you.
But that doesn’t have to be bad. A new criticism? Great, you found an opportunity to improve! But that’s not what people think. They don’t care that much about improving.
Why don’t they care that much about improving? Probably because they’re not confident they’ll be able to improve. Attempts at improvement often end in failure. They don’t trust their judgments much. They haven’t built up a solid foundation of proper knowledge which they can use to easily build upon.
Being an independent thinker requires that you have confidence in your reason. I think it has long been known that the belief in the efficacy of reason is important to have the confidence to be an independent thinker. When the dominant philosophy of society believes reason is impotent they’ll turn to an authority for answers. That’s true, but most people don’t have sophisticated or even specific views on philosophy. They do absorb a lot through media and other institutions like the church, but it’s not the full picture. Elliot explains another reason people don’t trust their judgments and aren’t independent thinkers, which is that people stop reaching for proper knowledge because of their parenting. See also Rational Confidence and Standards for Knowledge