448 Jacques Derrida 1984–2004
‘war, both serious and comic’, that had taken place in Cambridge.
‘An event of that sort [.. .] gave me a sharper awareness of the fact
that honorary degrees are sometimes more than purely conventional
rituals.’^24
Perhaps it was in response to the controversy across the Channel, or
to try to draw a line under the lack of recognition that the French
university system had shown him, but, on 14 July 1992, Derrida
was made a chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, following a proposal
by the minister Jack Lang. The decoration was handed over to him
at the Sorbonne by a close friend, Michèle Gendreau-Massaloux,
who was then rector. The speech Derrida made that day, hitherto
unpublished, goes beyond the usual protocols:
Forgive me if I am still wondering: have I deserved it? [.. .]
A malicious tradition, to which I may on occasion have
granted a little credence, insistently insinuates that it is not
enough to turn down the Légion d’Honneur. One needs, they
say, not to have deserved it. This is to fail to register the irony
inherent in every institution. [.. .]
I think that I will have spent my life, especially in its academic
aspects, which fortunately were not the whole story, wrestling
with the laws and subterfuges of this institutional irony.^25The philosopher then pursued his meditation on the state, on
honour, and on his own relation to institutions, especially those of
academia. He described, with as much sincerity as the circumstances
would allow, his constant ambivalence:
Whether it was a matter of writing or thought, of teaching or
research, of public life or private life, while I have never had
anything against institutions, I have always liked counter-insti-
tutions, whether those of the state or those which were indeed
not of the state or against the state. I also believe that one does
not wage war on institutions except in their name, as if to pay
them homage and in betraying, in every sense of the term [i.e.
also making manifest] the love one bears them. [.. .] The irony
is that the institution par excellence, the state, convinced that
there is no absolute exteriority which can make any objection
or form any opposition to it, always ends up recognizing coun-
ter-institutions and this is the moment when, ratifi ed, chosen or
confi rmed, they turn back into order and legion.^26Cerisy was one of those parallel institutions of which Derrida was
fond. From 11 to 21 July, a second décade was held on his work,
called ‘Le Passage des Frontières’ (‘Crossing Borders’). Two years