In Family Ba Jin passionately attacks Confucianism as inhumane and regressive, incapable of enabling or even adapting to a modernizing world. He portrays Confucian filial piety as a shackle that must be smashed if the Chinese people are to ever understand and realize a more egalitarian and humane society. What do you think? Is his argument convincing and accurate? Was it necessary at that historical moment in which he lived? Or do Harrison’s deliberations on Confucianism (as manifested in the life and thoughts of Liu Dapeng) force a re-evaluation of Ba Jin, or even invalidate his stark depictions.