I'm surprised to not see a mention of "This is Water", the commencement speech by David Foster Wallace at Kenyon College, which thesis is that the point of a liberal arts education is to help you escape your default setting.

http://bulletin-archive.kenyon.edu/x4280.html

I think the title of this post may be a reference to "This is Water", since I haven't seen the term "default setting" anywhere else, but I could be mistaken.