In "The Divine Comedy," Florentine poet Dante Alighieri reserves the fourth
circle of hell for "misers" and "prodigals," people who devoted their entire
lives to hoarding possessions or squandering money. Their punishment is an
eternity spent pointlessly pushing boulders in opposite directions around a
circle, butting up against each other in the medieval equivalent of a perpetual
shopping-cart jam.

If Dante were to update his 14th-century masterpiece for the 21st century,
hell's fourth circle might look something like the Wal-Mart at Valley Stream,
N.Y., Friday morning, when 2,000 unruly bargain hunters broke through the
locked door and stampeded inside, trampling to death employee Jdimytai Damour.

Damour's friends described the 6-foot-5, 270-pound temporary worker as a
"gentle giant." But Damour proved no match for the hordes of zombie shoppers
who stomped on him, over him and around him in their mad dash for discounted
flat-screen TVs and digital cameras. Nor did news of Damour's death by
suffocation and the injuries of several other people, including a pregnant
woman, convince customers to step aside and leave the store so emergency
medical personnel could tend the fallen. Instead, many kept shopping, saying
they had waited outside the store too long to leave empty-handed.

Variations on this hellish scene unfolded across America on Friday. Shopping
scuffles resulted in injuries at Wal-Mart stores in Secaucus, N.J., and Rapid
City, Mich. In Palm Desert, Calif., two men shot each other to death in a Toys
R Us after an argument erupted between the women accompanying them.

Much of the post-mortem finger-pointing for last week's violence has focused on
the usual suspects: corporate stiffs who scrimp on security, media moguls who
stoke Black Friday hype and marketing gurus who dream up "doorbuster sales."
One New York City councilman already has called for a law to regulate such
sales.

If only such measures could solve the problem. We would feel better if we could
cast all the blame on Wal-Mart for the crazed shoppers who cared more about
snagging $9 DVDs than saving a man's life. Our economic downturn would sting
less if our mortgage crisis were entirely the fault of predatory lenders, not
reckless borrowers, and if the buy-now-pay-later attitude we bemoan in
politicians were not shared by the average American household, which owes
nearly $11,000 in credit card debt.

It feels good to blame faceless bigwigs for the excesses of our materialistic
culture. It feels oddly satisfying to hatch ever-more-expansive schemes to
protect ourselves from our own irresponsibility. We'll boycott Wal-Mart! We'll
outlaw sales! We'll demand armed guards for the Barbie aisle at Toys R Us!

But after all our posturing and blaming, after we entangle ourselves in dozens
of new laws and sue every offending retailer who encourages our compulsions, we
still will be stuck with ourselves and our insatiable appetite for more stuff.
And our unwillingness to reign in that appetite will continue to erupt in new
and shocking ways, reminding us of the age-old links between covetousness,
anger and every other ugly vice.

Dante, writing more than seven centuries ago, knew those links well. His vivid
portrayal of the fate of the greedy — to spend eternity irritably pushing
around meaningless objects, having lost sight long ago of life's higher goods —
remains painfully relevant today. At the end of a year in which avarice has
played a prominent role in our national headaches and headlines, a copy of "The
Divine Comedy" might make a timely Christmas gift, especially for shopaholics.

But do yourself a favor, and buy it online. I hear the mall is a madhouse.

Colleen Carroll Campbell is an author, television and radio host and St.
Louis-based fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Her website is
www.colleen-campbell.com.