Table of Contents

Learning Against Learning: From Cardinal Wolsey to the Age of AI

A Historical and Conspiratorial Analysis of Information Overload and Ordo ab Chao

Introduction

In the early 16th century, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, adviser to King Henry VIII, recognized a dangerous new force unleashed by the printing press. He described it as “learning against learning”—the phenomenon where knowledge, instead of clarifying truth, multiplies into contradiction and confusion.

What Wolsey saw was not simply a quirk of his time. It was the first clear recognition of a recurring human problem: information overload as a weapon. The more knowledge multiplies, the more it cancels itself out, leaving the public overwhelmed, exhausted, and vulnerable to manipulation.

This whitepaper traces that principle across six eras—from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, from the Industrial Age to the Cold War, through the Digital Age, and into the emerging AI future. The conspiratorial framework of ordo ab chao—“order out of chaos”—runs throughout. Again and again, elites have harnessed the chaos of learning against learning to consolidate new forms of control.

Part I: Wolsey and the Printing Press Revolution

The invention of Gutenberg’s press (c. 1450) shattered the monopoly of monasteries and universities over written knowledge. By Wolsey’s lifetime, Europe was awash in pamphlets, Bibles, tracts, and treatises. Instead of reinforcing religious authority, this explosion produced doctrinal chaos.

Scriptural Multiplicity: Rival translations undermined Rome’s monopoly.
Doctrinal Warfare: Reformers and counter-reformers flooded Europe with competing arguments.
Intellectual Fatigue: Erasmus himself lamented “the multitude of books” as a plague.

Wolsey’s phrase learning against learning named this condition: truth fragmented by its own abundance. The result was the Reformation, an epochal upheaval in which knowledge became both liberating and destabilizing. Out of this chaos emerged new orders—Protestant churches, centralized monarchies, and modern states.

Part II: The Enlightenment and Controlled Knowledge

The 18th century saw knowledge production accelerate further. Encyclopedias, pamphlet wars, salons, and the “Republic of Letters” created a public sphere buzzing with ideas. Yet again, learning turned on itself.

Pamphlet Wars: Revolutionary France was deluged with contradictory calls to arms, visions of liberty, and ideological manifestos.
Encyclopédie: Diderot’s project to codify knowledge produced as much debate as resolution.
Factionalism: Philosophes fractured into rival camps, each undermining the others.

The result was revolutionary chaos. Pamphlet wars destabilized monarchies, but out of that chaos arose new authorities: revolutionary tribunals, and later Napoleonic empire. Censorship, surveillance, and controlled publication showed elites had learned Wolsey’s lesson: chaos could not be stopped, but it could be managed.

Part III: The Industrial Age and Mass Media Saturation

The 19th century industrialized information. Steam-powered presses, cheap paper, and telegraphy produced penny papers and mass journalism.

Cheap Newspapers: Dozens of rival papers in every city fractured public consensus.
Yellow Journalism: Sensationalism, exaggeration, and fabrication fueled wars and panics.
Telegraphy: Speed outpaced verification, ensuring errors and rumors spread unchecked.
Academic vs. Popular Divide: Scholarly learning grew specialized, while mass media fed the public spectacle and politics.

Here, learning against learning became structural. News was no longer trusted as truth but as partisan or commercial product. Truth became a tool, bent to narrative. Chaos was not incidental—it was the business model of modern media.

Part IV: Cold War Information Wars

By the mid-20th century, information chaos was weaponized as state doctrine.

Propaganda Saturation: Voice of America vs. Pravda, each flooding populations with rival worldviews.
Disinformation Doctrine: Soviet dezinformatsiya specialized in planting multiple false or contradictory narratives, ensuring paralysis.
CIA & KGB Operations: Cultural funding, forged documents, and rumor campaigns institutionalized learning against learning.
Cognitive Paralysis: Populations, aware every channel was propaganda, fell into distrust and apathy.

For the first time, learning against learning became official policy. Chaos itself was engineered to destabilize societies, with states offering themselves as the arbiters of stability. This was ordo ab chao as geopolitics.

Part V: The Digital Age of Overwhelm

The internet universalized Wolsey’s problem. No longer controlled by presses or states, knowledge multiplied without limit.

Infinite Content: Billions of web pages, forums, and feeds.
Contradiction by Default: Every fact met by counter-fact, every claim by rival claim.
Social Media Algorithms: Personalized “truth-worlds” fragmented populations into echo chambers.
Disinformation Flooding: Troll farms, bots, and synthetic accounts weaponized overload.

The result was the post-truth condition: reality itself contested, unstable, and tribalized. Exhausted by contradictions, many surrendered to apathy or partisan simplifications. Into this void stepped fact-checkers, Big Tech platforms, and legacy media, presenting themselves as curators of truth. The ordo ab chao dynamic was complete.

Part VI: AI and Infinite Reproduction of Chaos

The newest phase of Wolsey’s cycle is artificial intelligence. For the first time, machines can generate contradictions at scale, without human labor.

Generative Text: Large language models produce endless plausible narratives.
Deepfakes: Synthetic video and audio collapse trust in all visual evidence.
Automated Disinformation: AI bots flood networks with fabricated posts and comment streams.
Self-Referential Loops: AI trains on AI output, compounding contradictions infinitely.

This is not simply overload—it is infinite recursion of chaos. Truth is dissolved in its own synthetic reflection. Fact-checking collapses, evidence is doubted, and public trust disintegrates. Into this collapse step governments, corporations, and AI platforms, claiming the power to filter “real” from “fake.”

This is Wolsey’s nightmare perfected: learning endlessly multiplied against itself, producing chaos that only central authority can resolve.

Conclusion

From the Renaissance to the digital age, Wolsey’s warning has echoed across history. Learning against learning is the paradox of knowledge: the more it multiplies, the more it risks canceling itself out.

16th century: The printing press fractured Christendom.
18th century: Pamphlet wars fueled revolutions.
19th century: Mass media institutionalized sensational chaos.
20th century: The Cold War weaponized disinformation.
21st century: The internet dissolved truth into permanent contradiction.
Future: AI infinitely reproduces chaos, demanding new arbiters of order.

In every era, the cycle repeats:

Knowledge multiplies.
Contradictions overwhelm.
Minds exhaust.
Authority reasserts order—ordo ab chao.

Wolsey’s phrase was not merely an observation of his time. It was the blueprint of modern power.

Sources

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