Is It Culture?

The definition of culture: “When a species attains a certain order of intelligence, the members of one generation begin to pass along information and technique to the rest. The next generation takes this accumulation, ads its own discoveries and refinements and passes the total on to the next” (Quinn, page 198.). Although I disagree, I found this quote interesting. Other than an uncle arriving to town, Ishmael disappearing and other long pages of deep reflection of the leaver and the taker life philosophy on how we ought to live. The chapter is the quote above.
Probably the author was having problems on how to end the book. He spends some page of how Ishmael was suddenly lost. The human finds itself in desperate position when its spiritual teacher suddenly disappears. Not in his office neither in the house of its owner (the daughter of the Jew, if I am not wrong her name is Rachel.) Although some time later he is found on a carnival.
If culture was the knowledge passed through generations (considering that the hole world, or more specifically every region has a specific culture). Humanity hasent learned from its mistakes. Every experience has something to teach, therefore we supposedly have learned from our mistakes, which have given us some knowledge we transmit through generations (which is culture) we have definitely failed! I disagree because the culture may be something that makes someone or something unique. Or in a general view the common stream of thoughts and specific actions. Colombia is a country rich in culture, if the definition by Quinn and my theory on learning from our mistakes were correct; Colombia would not be rich, we have experienced corruption, violence and several other misfortunes through the hole 200 years of existence. If we transmitted knowledge from generation to generation it wouldn’t be lost. Again Colombia is an example; the hits in local music or the dance style of my parents’ generation was lost. Culture is made and lost constantly.