Via Negativa | Kaelan

Michelangelo said he released David from the marble by removing everything that wasn’t David. The theologians who coined “via negativa” described God by what God isn’t — not limited, not temporal, not material — because positive claims always fell short. The method generalizes: sometimes the path to better is through less, not more.

Addition feels productive; subtraction feels like giving up. But many systems improve faster through removal. Cut the features that confuse users. Stop the meetings that waste time. Drop the habits that drain energy. Remove the clutter that hides what matters. The gains from subtraction are often larger and more durable than gains from addition.

Nassim Taleb calls this “subtractive knowledge” — knowing what doesn’t work is more robust than knowing what does. We can confidently list foods that harm health; we’re less certain which ones help. We know which management practices destroy morale; we’re guessing about which build it. The negative list is shorter, stabler, and more actionable.

Via negativa applies to decisions too. Avoid what’s obviously wrong before chasing what might be right. Don’t blow up; you can figure out thriving later. The person who avoids major mistakes beats the person who makes brilliant moves but occasionally catastrophic ones. antifragility starts with surviving.

The psychological barrier is loss aversion in reverse. We overvalue what we might add; we undervalue what we could subtract. Every new initiative has a champion; eliminating old initiatives has no constituency. Organizations accumulate commitments, possessions, processes — and wonder why they feel heavy.

The discipline: before asking what to add, ask what to remove. The answer is often more valuable. Sculptors and surgeons already know this. The rest of us keep reaching for more marble.