I think you're misunderstanding my use of the term 'resist'. I'm not talking about Luddites smashing machines, I'm talking about people seeing something—say, a little bolt of lightning jumping between two wires, or whatever (I don't know much about electricity)—and saying "Cool. So what. Go and trim the candles."

Perhaps a better way of putting it is to say that societies don't tend to like trying new things. Sure, if electricity and electrical science completely with light bulbs and electric motors and so on just suddenly fell into the lap of XYZ person in Medieval Europe, already working, no doubt he'd seize onto it and things would be radically different. But that's now how things work. Steam power, as mentioned earlier in this thread, was originally used as a pump getting water out of coal mines. Why? Because almost nothing else worked well, and some clever clogs out up his hand and said "I've got a vestigial something that might make this easier." Then it caught on. But that doesn't happen with electricity; for electricity to be useful you need copper and ferromagnetic metals. Worse, you need it to be reasonably priced and you need it to be machined correctly—the right size, the right shape, the right amount. Without metallurgy and machining (direct results of the Industrial Revolution), you just can't have electricity.

And why would they do so? You can't have a light bulb unless you already have electricity, so how would you convince people to invest in and support research into electricity? By just magically knowing that it's gonna be great? Sure, if you're a time traveler, but this isn't a fantasy sub.