We are not just a species who uses symbols. The symbolic universe has ensnared us in an inescapable web. Like a 'mind' virus, the symbolic adaptation has infected us, and now by virtue of the irresistable urge it has instilled in us to turn everything we encounter and everyone we meet into symbols, we have become the means by which it unceremoniously propagates itself through the world.
Also, I was going to edit:
Also, I was going to edit: I'd emphasise, Nulab probably did more than anyone to set up a perverse system that's managed to combine all the worst bits of both public and private. That's just been carried on - I see specsavers have won some NHS contracts for hearing tests - thus doing away with the whole point of having a number of high street branches competing for my custom.