Hillel, Shamaï and Hanukkah and the fight against despair

Two conflicting opinions exist regarding the order of lighting Hanukkah candles.
Shammai’s school says that we start with 8 candles and decrease the number each day to a single candle on the last day.
Hillel’s school says otherwise. We start with one candle on the first day and end with 8 candles.
It is Hillel’s opinion that is accepted everywhere.
But what was this debate based on?
How to fight the forces of despair and turn things into light and joy.
Our Sages call these negative forces Epicureanism.
Shammai’s opinion can be interpreted according to the notion that the 8 days of Hanukkah are like the feast of sukkot, where the number of sacrifices is reduced. This is to teach the peoples of the world that it is necessary to be humble to be saved. Humility, as in Sukkot, leads to joy.
Hillel’s school says that the victory of Hanukkah being over the obscurity of Epicureanism and not over pride as in sukkot, the battle is different.
Epicureanism was for these Sages the danger present in societies which do not believe that life has a meaning and which propagate these ideas as an ideology which leads to despair.
So Shammai thought that Epicureanism is gradually being extinguished by humility.
For his school it was better to separate people and get them to meditate on their actions.
But Hillel believed that it is through love and warmth that we add every day doing good for all, and through contact with others and with life, that this obscurantism is combated and destroyed.
The light for Hillel is to stay connected to each other under all circumstances, to widen and enlarge the circle of love to include everyone.