Prime Ministers of Japan in the 2000s have justified their visits to Yasukuni Shrine on `cultural relativism,` that these visits should not be criticized as they are part of Japan`s tradition and culture. As this article finds, such cultural relativist argument by Japanese Prime Ministers can be traced back to the work of Eto Jun`s Perspectives of the Living and the Dead (1986) - Japan`s representative post-war conservative culturalist. Briefly put, Eto Jun argues in this article that Prime Ministers` official visits to Yasukuni Shrine should not be contextualized in terms of the constitutionality, whether they are infringing on the principle of separating religions from the state matters. Instead, Eto finds that the discussions on the Yasukuni visits should be addressed in a separate cultural dimension, how these practices are at the essence of how Japanese society have treated the livings and the deads - Japan`s own culture of the livings and their `sense of co-existence/symbiosis with their memories of the deads.` However, what makes Eto`s essay exceptional is not so much of his application of cultural relativism to the Yasukuni issues, but his unique reasoning and approach to history. He criticizes Japanese society`s contemporary tendency to treat the issue of Yasukuni Shrine visits in relation to the 1946 postwar Constitution. Instead, he argues that the meaning of Yasukuni Shrine should be thought as part of important ancient literary theme - symbiosis between the livings and deceased. Put differently, Eto is bringing in a much broader scope and timeframe, extending and connecting the `postwar` frame to the `ancient` period. While this approach seems to highlight Eto`s emphasis on understanding in-depth history, his extensive scope actually generalizes the meanings of individual histories. Based on his personal or fictional extension of history, Eto is trying to construct `history as an event.` Such approach to history can be similarly found in Eto`s other writings on the post-war history. To Eto, post-war Japan has become distorted and `enclosed within set of dictions` under the censorship of GHQ, as well as the `virtual reality` created by bureaucrats who have treated the Yasukuni issues only in the realms of legal principles. By focusing on the origin of occupation and censorship in Japan, Eto seeks to erase the distinctiveness of historical incidents of power politics and struggles in Japanese history.