The case for Equality, why equal societies are stronger

It depends what you imagine equality to be either a social relation in society or a declaration of sameness? i have to apologize in advance for the long reply but I'm feeling articulate today...

I hold that for purpose of semantics equality refers to the social arrangements we arrange between people within societies. It has little to do with us being forced into being the same, not only was that tried it was ideological failure which only the most inexperienced would propose a solution. In a truly egalitarian society individuality isn't removed however that point I'll make later on..

The question being raise do we want to live in hierarchical society or an egalitarian one? I spent a good portion of my studies asking that question and was drawn to anthropology where my question was refined in reflection... "what type of society did human beings create in nature", the answer I discovered not shockingly was we created egalitarian societies where power was shared creating relatively equal social relations, making power impossible to posses and there is enough quantitative data to allude to that point. In fact our hierarchical society we live in today is technically the shortest way humanity has organized society since the beginning of the neolithic era which may have been the origin of the social division as a result of labor specialization of course as is always humanity unwittingly stumbled into such a world by accident. The truth is our current social arrangement has consequences which our ancestors seemed to instinctively have known and so this research illustrates, we may have stumbled into this social arrangement yet there is a need for us to consciously alter our course otherwise we will produce hells for many poor souls.

As for individuality well I don't know if it truly exist except in a certain environment (our contemporary one) where things like knowledge can be obfuscated from one another through economic means, not every kid gets to go to art school rent for free per say...
So your uniqueness as you put it is the collective knowledge of theories, techniques, and ideas acquired from centuries of human knowledge none of which originate from you through you but rather through your unique experience is mediated through your work, of course in this way their is some individualism. It has political implications and the "egalitarians" as you mention have made mistakes when they seized power, horrible ones but that rest mostly on their proposal of "how do we force society to be more equal" was already a failure when it assumed it could force anything even utopia onto people even if they thought it was for the general welfare, which always belittles the individual. Rather a person truly seeking a more equal world should ask "how do we create a society that engenders equality to be realized among citizens". I have to say communism had all the right moves until it assumed the average person needed to be forced into a more heavenly world, one of the reasons this it ignored the individual in favor of ideology which is why I proudly tell people I'm an anarchist, etc etc. I hate to write so much so here's an anecdotal story of my own:

I myself live as an artist and of course having spent time in various cities know many artist spanning the spectrum of disciplines. In one particular instance in New York of all places a group of such friends and I were having a meal when one of our friends, a musician (who also worked as teacher) announced that he was going to become a serious painter. Upon hearing this announcement all my painter friends scoffed noses upturned saying how can you do such a thing, you didn't study art, you're a musician stick to it, you didn't do this and that, to my amazement they spent a good time trying to tell our friend that this task was irresponsible if not impossible. I found it hideous that artist would say such things, here these people are who seemed to forgot how they too developed into such authorities of their little crafts. Having too been in his position I sought to make a point to them that our friend was already the best artist among us because they had realized potential and weren't afraid to break from the hegemony of art institution especially from the cabal of pissed painters who i assume felt a threat to their already tiny profit margin (maybe a loss of fame and privilege as well). Needless to say after some time this friend of ours manages to get pieces shown in galleries across the world with our friends once doubters having witnessed this gap being crossed shut their mouths and accepted this as a new order... this is equality.

Paraphrasing Ranciere a little...
Equality is not that the there is no distance between the master and the ignorant, but rather that the master recognizes that the ignorant can too become a master by acquiring the knowledge which the master possesses. Distance in knowledge is not to be abolished but rather the idea of permanent distance between people should be made impossible by enabling gaps to bridged.

Thanks for the interesting response. There are certain points on which we disagree but I think we have similar conclusions.

Certainly, there is no genuine equality in nature and I'm convinced social equality isn't possible or even desirable. I see the emergent path of nature in general - not a conscious one, at least, not until life similar to ours came along - is to see what else is possible, i.e., constant experimentation. This could not be more clear than when we observe our own species. Yes, we are remarkably physically diverse and every version of us has it advantages and disadvantages depending on context, but that diversity is hugely overshadowed by our intellectual and emotional differences. Physical diversity would be enough by itself to justify social stratification, however, add in our intellectual and emotional differences and social stratification is unavoidable.

If we indeed value the greatest achievement possible for each human being in accordance with their potential and for the species as a whole, those who are super achievers must be free to stretch themselves and whatever direction they deem fit and those who are underachievers must be free to do the same and none should be denigrated for doing their best. The super achiever mustn't be made to feel guilty for being so talented, nor should the underachiever be made to feel guilty for what they lack in comparison. We can respect both without tearing both apart in some freakish design toward making them "equal". As I said, each version of us experiences places and times for which we seem tailored, and those for which we do not. It is the way of nature.

Still, as you suggest toward the end, stratification need not mean lack of respect for one another. As I mentioned, equality is likely impossible and certainly undesirable at least to persons such as ourselves who live and breath by the value of the unique point of view. We do not need to be made equal, but rather need respect for our inevitable and priceless differences. It is the way of nature that we discover them and cultivate them. We must be - and usually are - in a constant state of experimentation.

We must always be looking in ourselves and in all with which we come into contact for what else is possible.