I think of the counterculture

as something consumerism unintentionally produced. 

And then nullified.

The machinery of consumerism exists to incite dissatisfaction. Specifically, it is designed to create just enough dissatisfaction to make you crave the new thing but not so much that you become disillusioned with consumption altogether. 

In the '60s you had a generation that had grown up conditioned by this artificially induced appetite for something more, and I would say it was conditioned to the point where the appetite could not be satisfied by what consumerism had to offer. I would even say that at some point, consumerism produced a craving for the transcendent that threatened a complete generational rupture with the consumer economy. Hence the youthful indulgence in sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll, and esoteric non-Western spiritual practices. Young people were craving ecstatic experiences that exceeded, for a moment, what consumerism could bring to market.

Those moments of ecstasy and abandon were the beatific highlights of the counterculture.

But then the inevitable corruption set in, hastened by the internalization of that same consumerist conditioning that had incited a rebellion against consumerism. These '60s kids just couldn't kick the need for instant gratification. 

Glimpses of the transcendent are easy to come by. Music, drugs, sex offer glimpses. But to abide in the transcendent requires sacrifice, discipline, humility, and persistence, and the individuals capable of this were few. So it did not take very long for consumerism to reclaim the erstwhile rebels of the '60s.

Seeking the mystical death of the ego, many succumbed to actual self-destruction. The rest became consumers of "alternative" lifestyles dependent on alternative modes of consumption, which a consumer society was all too happy to accommodate, whether in the form of peasant blouses, beads, bell-bottoms or in the form of illicit but easily obtainable drugs.

The drugs were shortcuts to an altered state of consciousness that might have become mystical and genuinely life-changing had it been achieved with the proper techniques and proper attitude, that is, through prayer, self-discipline, and surrender to God's will. But the children of Madison Avenue did not have it in them to endure the hardships that spiritual purgation requires.

So instead of becoming ascetic mystics they became spoiled and whiny boomers.

But, yes, before the rot set in there were moments of great beauty in the '60s and most of them are to be found in the music.