Macleans is proposing that Canada raise the voting age to 21 because, as I understand it, so few people between 18 and 21 vote. So preventing those who actually do is clearly a pressing issue. Or something. J. Kelly Nestruck deconstructs this argument quite ably, so I won't dwell on the proposal itself.

What interests me is that it's coming up at all. The authors propose two conflicting reasons for such a proposal. First they state that young people are innately too immature to vote:

But there's a growing body of evidence to suggest that's a wrong-headed approach. Scientific, sociological and demographic evidence indicates that young people are, in essence, too immature and too detached from functioning society to be entrusted with the vote. What if the move to lower the age from 21 to 18 was wrong in the first place and ought to be reversed?

By 'scientific' they must mean biological, but quote no evidence. I spent last weekend with my stepfather, who left school at 13 in 1940 to support his family. I loved telling him that there's 'scientific' evidence that teenagers are not even mature enough to vote, let alone hold down a job and shoulder adult responsibilities.

But just a few sentences later, our intrepid authors come up with another reason:

But kids today aren't what they were in 1970 -- not the stakeholders in the political process, nor the models of civic engagement their boomer parents once aspired to be..."The traditional adulthood of duty and self-sacrifice is becoming more and more a thing of the past," James Côté, a sociologist at the University of Western Ontario, explains. In 1970, adolescence ended abruptly after the age of 19; now it languishes well into one's 20s or 30s.

So it's purely cultural? That I can buy. Basically 18 year olds don't vote because voting is like, pretty hard.

My own opinion is that young people don't vote because no one really expects them to. When I was growing up, political engagement was mandatory. Our house subscribed to several papers, and we were expected to read them and have an opinion to express at the dinner table. And woe betide us if our opinions were unformed. As I turned 18, I was firmly expected to vote at the earliest possible opportunity. Federally, this meant the referendum on the Charlottetown Accord.

I realize we were anomalous. Society doesn't really expect very much from teenagers these days, even older ones.

But then, the history of western society over the last 50 years has been the gradual reduction of personal responsibility. We hardly even expect very much from adults any more. Having absolved adults from taking responsibility for the important aspects of their lives, is it any wonder that voter turnout is decreasing?

In the meantime, we marvel at situations where we actually do have to step it up. From another article in the same Macleans issue, this one on school reform:

"Sometimes it's a little scary," [principal Jane ] Klaray says. "You're treated as an adult. You're given a great deal of responsibility. The expectations are very high and you're judged on the results."

In a country where school principals marvel at being treated as adults, it should not be very surprising that teenagers expect to be treated like children.