There's no need to pretend to be civilized for Westerners. Most are familiar with the barbarism of their modern colonial history. If anything, Western and civilized are quite contradictory.

It was Westerners that used their religious book to justify enslaving 12.5 million people and treated them as chattel. I can't think of a more profound lack humanity in modern human history. Actually the next few that come to mind are also Western atrocities.