The faux intellectual vibe in programming is purely cultural due to class associations. If welders and prgorammers traded places in terms of class associations (ie, if welders earn what programmers earn and vice versa AND if welding was something you do in an office and programming was something you do in the field or workshop), well guess what? Welding would have an academic intellectual culture, and programming would have more of a blue collar culture. You'd hear complaints about welding interviews requiring memorization of chemical reaction formulas instead of practical skills. Programmers would probably long ago been unionized. Etc.
A couple generations from now, basic programming skill will no longer be so scarce that even an idiot who manages to pick some up is highly valuable. The reason programming ability is scarce is not because it's much harder, but simply historical/cultural.