Focusing on the Cold War era, when learning against learning became state doctrine through propaganda and disinformation campaigns.

Table of Contents

Learning Against Learning, Part IV: Cold War Information Wars

Introduction

By the mid-20th century, the dynamics Cardinal Wolsey warned about—learning set against learning—were no longer incidental. They had become formalized strategy. The Cold War was not just a contest of armies and economies; it was a battle of information. Both the United States and the Soviet Union learned that truth did not need to be suppressed if it could instead be drowned in contradiction.

This was the perfected form of ordo ab chao: deliberate, state-sponsored information chaos as a weapon of control.

Propaganda Saturation

The Cold War produced an arms race of narratives.

United States: Institutions like Voice of America and Radio Free Europe broadcast into Eastern Europe, flooding the airwaves with American narratives of freedom and prosperity.
Soviet Union: Pravda, Izvestia, and countless pamphlets reinforced Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy, while simultaneously sowing doubts about Western institutions.
Satellite States: Each side funded front organizations, cultural journals, and publishing houses to pump out aligned content.

This wasn’t merely about persuasion. It was about overproduction—flooding the field so that no single truth could dominate.

Disinformation as Doctrine

The Soviets perfected dezinformatsiya—the art of spreading false, contradictory, and confusing information.

Planting Rumors: False stories would be introduced into the media ecosystem, knowing that rival outlets would amplify, contradict, or half-confirm them.
Multiple Narratives: Instead of one clean lie, several competing explanations would circulate, ensuring the public was left uncertain and paralyzed.
“Active Measures”: Disinformation was part of a larger strategy to destabilize opponents politically, socially, and culturally.

The U.S. responded in kind, running psychological operations and black propaganda campaigns that similarly blurred truth and falsehood.

The Role of Intelligence Agencies

Agencies like the CIA and KGB institutionalized the principle of learning against learning.

CIA: Funded magazines, artistic movements, and academic conferences that subtly advanced U.S. narratives while undermining Soviet credibility.
KGB: Inserted fabricated documents, forged news articles, and rumors into Western outlets to exploit ideological divisions.
Both: Exploited the inherent chaos of mass media, ensuring that every truth was countered by rival “truths.”

For the first time, learning against learning became an explicit tool of statecraft, not merely an accidental byproduct of printing technology.

Cognitive Paralysis and Public Fatigue

The result was widespread cognitive exhaustion.

Citizens learned to mistrust media, aware that propaganda saturated every channel.
Competing versions of reality (e.g., U.S. prosperity vs. Soviet equality) left many disengaged.
In contested regions—Latin America, Africa, Asia—the flood of competing propaganda fractured societies, paving the way for coups, insurgencies, and proxy wars.

Just as in Wolsey’s time, learning was set against learning, overwhelming the public into passivity.

Conspiratorial Angle: Controlled Chaos

From a conspiratorial perspective, the Cold War shows how information chaos was not merely tolerated—it was engineered.

Overwhelm: Flooding societies with propaganda ensured no singular truth could stabilize.
Confuse: Contradictory narratives paralyzed decision-making and fractured opposition movements.
Exhaust: Populations tuned out, creating space for authoritarian control.
Ordo ab Chao: Into this chaos, states presented themselves as the necessary arbiters of stability.

The tactic Wolsey feared became official government policy.

Conclusion

The Cold War was the moment when learning against learning left the realm of metaphor and became state doctrine. No longer accidental, information overload was systematically weaponized to destabilize, confuse, and control populations.

The cycle once again held:

Flood the field with narratives.
Contradict until nothing is clear.
Exhaust the public into apathy.
Reassert authority—ordo ab chao.

This doctrine of information warfare would not end with the Cold War. It would evolve and intensify in the digital age.

Sources

ORDO AI CHAO – Essence of AI – Learning Against Learning, Info War

ORDO AI CHAO 4 – Essence of AI – Cold Info Wars