ABSTRACT
In 1932, Aldous Huxley published Brave New World, a book that was widely popular with the San Francisco counterculture of the late 1960s. Aldous Huxley's narrative enforces a dialectical relationship between consumerism and symbolic freedom in order to guarantee the success of Brave New World's thesis. For Haight-Ashbury residents who wanted immediate gratification and transformative experiences in the 1960s, a chaotic mix of elements was available, making the counterculture vulnerable to media co-optation. Refusal of the technocracy and disengagement from the mainstream were transformed into a fixed countercultural sensibility while Haight-Ashbury became a consumer spectacle. The narrative of "Sugar Magnolia" is relayed in the first person by a man expounding on his lover's many positive traits, and describing the activities and feelings he likes to share with her. When the song begins, the listener is not yet aware that "Magnolia" signifies anything but a flower.
