In this paper, we try to reveal the structure of the $Y(4660)$ from the light-quark perspective. We study the dipion invariant mass spectrum and the helicity angular distributions of the $e^+ e^- \to Y(4660) \to \psi(2S) \pi^+\pi^-$ process. In particular, we consider the effects of different light-quark SU(3) eigenstates inside the $Y(4660)$. The strong pion-pion final-state interactions as well as the $K\bar{K}$ coupled channel in the $S$-wave are taken into account model independently by using dispersion theory. We find that the light-quark SU(3) octet state plays a significant role in this transition, implying that the $Y(4660)$ contains a large light-quark component and thus might not be a pure conventional charmonium state. In the fit scheme considering both the SU(3) singlet and SU(3) octet states, two solutions are found, and both solutions reproduce the $\pi\pi$ invariant mass spectra well. New measurement data with higher statistics in the future will be helpful to better distinguish these two solutions.