Abstract
This paper traces the historical trajectory of learning against learning, a phrase attributed to Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in the early 16th century to describe the destabilizing effects of proliferating knowledge. Beginning with the printing press revolution, the analysis examines successive phases of information overload: the Enlightenment’s pamphlet culture, the Industrial Age’s mass media saturation, Cold War disinformation campaigns, the Digital Age’s “post-truth” condition, and the emerging crisis of infinite AI-generated content. The central argument is that information overload functions not only as an accidental byproduct of technological progress but also as a strategic instrument of control, following the conspiratorial logic of ordo ab chao—order out of chaos.
Introduction
The problem of information overload is not a modern discovery. Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (c.1475–1530), chief adviser to Henry VIII, observed the destabilizing effects of the printing press, lamenting that new technologies had set “learning against learning.”[^1] Wolsey’s insight captures a paradox: while knowledge is presumed to liberate, its overproduction can fragment truth, overwhelm the public, and create conditions of epistemic instability.
This paper argues that learning against learning has recurred across history as both danger and instrument of power. From Renaissance Europe to the era of artificial intelligence, information overload has been used to disorient populations, exhaust critical faculties, and consolidate new authorities under the principle of ordo ab chao.
1. Renaissance Origins: Wolsey and the Printing Press
The Gutenberg press (c.1450) transformed Europe by making books, pamphlets, and treatises widely available. By Wolsey’s era, the proliferation of rival translations of Scripture and polemical tracts undermined Catholic orthodoxy. Erasmus lamented “the multitude of books” as a plague, while Montaigne acknowledged the impossibility of mastering such abundance.[^2]
The Reformation illustrates the destabilizing effect of information glut. Competing theological claims overwhelmed both clergy and laity. Knowledge fractured consensus rather than unifying it. Out of this chaos, however, emerged new authorities—Protestant churches, absolutist monarchies, and the modern state.
2. Enlightenment and the Politics of Contradiction
The 18th century Enlightenment multiplied the effect of Wolsey’s warning. Pamphlet wars, encyclopedias, and international correspondence networks expanded the public sphere.[^3] Yet this expansion did not resolve truth; instead, it produced factionalism and revolutionary instability.
In France, pamphlets fueled the Revolution while contradicting each other daily. In America, tracts like Paine’s Common Sense unified some audiences while fragmenting others. The Encyclopédie, meant to unify knowledge, instead hosted competing interpretations.
Here, contradiction itself became political weaponry. The French Revolution demonstrates the cycle: information flood → ideological chaos → revolutionary upheaval → emergence of centralized order (Jacobin tribunals, Napoleonic empire).
3. The Industrial Age and Mass Media Saturation
The 19th century industrialized information through steam presses, cheap paper, and the telegraph. The penny press made newspapers accessible to mass audiences, while “yellow journalism” sensationalized and distorted reporting.[^4]
The Spanish–American War (1898) illustrates this dynamic. Hearst and Pulitzer’s newspapers exaggerated and fabricated reports, generating public outrage that helped push the United States into war. The telegraph further accelerated circulation, ensuring misinformation traveled faster than verification.
Academic knowledge simultaneously withdrew into specialized domains, while mass media catered to sensationalism, producing epistemic silos. The fragmentation of truth became systemic: learning against learning was no longer incidental but institutional.
4. Cold War Information Wars
The Cold War elevated information chaos to doctrine. Both the United States and the Soviet Union institutionalized disinformation.
- Propaganda Saturation: Voice of America and Radio Free Europe countered Pravda and Soviet outlets.
- Dezinformatsiya: Soviet agencies deliberately planted contradictory stories to paralyze adversaries.[^5]
- CIA Cultural Operations: Western intelligence funded journals and art movements to subtly influence intellectual elites.
Rather than suppress information, both blocs overproduced narratives. Citizens, aware of propaganda saturation, increasingly distrusted all media. This fatigue reinforced state authority: in chaos, populations gravitated toward official arbiters.
5. The Digital Age of Overwhelm
The internet universalized Wolsey’s problem. Information multiplied infinitely across websites, blogs, forums, and social platforms. Algorithms amplified contradictions, creating personalized epistemic environments.
The result was the post-truth condition—a term capturing the collapse of consensus reality.[^6] Every fact is instantly contested; fact-checks are countered by rival “fact-checks.” Troll farms, bots, and synthetic accounts exploit this glut by flooding discourse with disinformation.
Exhausted, many citizens disengage entirely or retreat into ideological silos. Into this void step fact-checking bodies, legacy media, and Big Tech platforms, positioning themselves as arbiters of truth. Chaos becomes the foundation for re-centralized control: ordo ab chao.
6. AI and Infinite Recursion of Contradiction
Artificial intelligence marks the culmination of Wolsey’s cycle. Generative models automate the production of contradictory knowledge at scale.
- Large Language Models: Produce endless plausible but unverifiable texts.
- Deepfakes: Undermine trust in visual and auditory evidence.
- Automated Disinformation: AI-driven bots can flood networks with synthetic narratives.
- Self-Referential Loops: AI trained on AI output compounds contradictions exponentially.
The result is not merely overload but infinite recursion of chaos. Truth dissolves into simulation. Fact-checking becomes impossible. Populations suffer cognitive collapse, and centralized authorities—states, corporations, AI platforms—present themselves as filters of “reality.”
Conclusion
From Wolsey’s Renaissance warning to AI’s generative flood, the cycle of learning against learning persists:
- Knowledge multiplies.
- Contradictions overwhelm.
- Minds exhaust.
- Authority reasserts order—ordo ab chao.
This trajectory reveals information overload as more than accident; it is a recurring mechanism of control. The Reformation, the Enlightenment, mass media, Cold War propaganda, the internet, and AI all demonstrate the same logic: chaos is engineered, and authority consolidates from it.
Wolsey’s phrase was prophetic. In every age since, learning has not only advanced truth but also been turned inward—weaponized against itself.
References
[^1]: Thomas Wolsey, in context of Tudor religious politics, as noted in The History of England resources: https://thehistoryofengland.co.uk/resource/cardinal-wolsey-and-the-historians
[^2]: Erasmus, Adages; Montaigne, Essais.
[^3]: Jonathan Israel, Radical Enlightenment (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
[^4]: W. Joseph Campbell, Yellow Journalism: Puncturing the Myths, Defining the Legacies (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2001).
[^5]: Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West (Penguin, 1999).
[^6]: RAND Corporation, Truth Decay: An Initial Exploration of the Diminishing Role of Facts and Analysis in American Public Life (2018).
