It's not uncommon for people to use the mental shorthand that progressive=change, conservative=no change. In fact, conservatism is constantly changing and adapting and reinventing itself. Traditions like 'western civilisation' or 'Judeo-Christian ethics' are very new ideas.

At least in the modern sense; for one thing they elide sectarian divides that would have been considered unbreachable only a few generations ago. What conservatism does do is to preserve the gains of past struggles over ideas and thinking. 'History is written by the victors'...

is something we all know, but the battle for victory in the war of ideas is fought and re-fought endlessly. It shouldn't be surprising then that the symbols of those past victories - statues and institutions especially - should provoke such fierce defences.

Just like the monuments to Nelson and Wellington stand for their victories, so too do the cultural monuments stand for past triumphs - and often erected long after the original lived. Consider how many 'historic' Confederate statues date from the 20th century, up to the 1960s-70s

And how keen the Australian government was to erect some mammoth monument to Cook. It isn't because we are in any danger of forgetting his name, but to reinforce the idea of what he stands for in the modern history debates. The idea is that the next generation will assume...

...he always stood there, and always meant the same thing. Instant tradition, the alchemy turning new stonework into the golden years of long ago!
(don't even get me started on the thriving market in Traditional Family Crests; more instant history coming to you pre-aged)

The Romans knew this full well - and they bequeathed to us their own habit of inventing tradition and destroying any evidence that points the other way. 'Damnatio memoriae' was a well understood tactic; erase the image, the name and any footprint of your inconvenient forebear...

...and you run a good chance of winning the history war before a blow is struck. And the thing is we've done it so many times that it has become second nature. Our entire understanding of history, culture, power and control has been systematically fabricated;

sometimes almost all at once, bu mostly so steadily that we didn't notice. We don't remember famous women and people who weren't from the tribe of the ruling faction because everything has been arranged this way. Feminists have known this for a long time, of course...

...but most white men, even progressive ones, take a lot longer for the penny to drop. It took a fair bit of soul searching for me to realise in the field of religion how much invention has gone on, and how much of the inconvenient past has been dropped out of the story.

Deciding to portray Jesus as a blue-eyed, light-haired man is not necessarily an act of damnatio memoriae, given the habit of all Christian societies since the beginning to depict him as one of their own; but maintaining that stance today certainly is.

And it only just dawned recently (on me, slowcoach) how the victory of Protestantism was fuelled by the need to remove Mary as symbol of divine womanhood. The all-male Trinity without any Queen of Heaven grants the final seal to the No Dames school of theology.