I don't think that's right. Civilizations might be incredibly rare but it's wrong to act like evolution doesn't converge in this direction. Almost every animal on Earth has complicated social interactions with others of the same species. From that point you just need enough intelligence for oral history to occur. It seems like humans are the first to reach this point, but that others have the capacity to reach it too with enough time.
Also if it is right, it's just a long and poetic way to say that society is a great filter.
The fermi paradox is really interesting to me because it just doesn't seem to have a solution given our current understanding of the world.