I find myself in an odd position of arguing on what amount to be the side of the empire - but this kind of western/northern middle class guilt tripping and "going native" really gets on my nerves, because it is a pure spin, entirely detached from reality.
It is an unquestionable fact that Western democracies created unprecedented peace and prosperity, thus ending the state of perpetual war that characterized earlier stages of development. Whatever we can think of the ethical and aesthetic values (or lack thereof) of commercialism and liberal democracy - it is an undisputed fact that liberal democracies are considerably less likely to go to war than any other form of polity. There is a reason for the phrase Pax Britannica or Pax Americana - after all it, it is peace with incidental episodes of war as opposed to, say, 30- or 100- year wars that used to go on.
It is also an indisputable fact that everyone, from Meji Japan, to Soviet Russia, to China, Latin America and Africa want to emulate the success of western/northern liberal democracies - the "nativist" rhetoric for domestic consumption notwithstanding. Everyone want to be like Western Europe and the US, with perhaps some local flavours, but like north/west nonetheless, and everyone makes every effort it can to get there as soon as possible. That causes a lot of uprooting of the backward rural elements, which in turn causes a lot of violence and fighting, but the fact remains that both policy makes and large segments of population in the entire world want and pursue western/northern style modernization.
Saying that "globalization" imposes alien western/northern standards on people around the world against their will is as absurd as saying that hospitals impose alien health norms on sick cells of the patent's body. In fact, in both cases, the treatment regimen is essentially a good thing that has some unfortunate side effects. The point is to minimize these side effects, not to abandon the treatment.
Wojtek