Equality reduces everyone to the same starting point, which if you think about it, means a very low level. This shows how equality always serves as a negative sanction, not a growth in the good. It stops some from rising above the rest and triggering them.
This means that we depend on social goodwill, or the assessment by others that we are good people who deserve good things from them. Our people cower in fear of offending anyone because then social goodwill from everyone is at risk.
If you want to explain the modern time in a nutshell, it is that equality has made us dependent on the crowd, and so we crawl to it like beggars, offering up ourselves as sacrifice to its pretenses. No wonder no one can talk about real things anymore.